Goodnight, Noises Everywhere
by Feisty Y. Beden
Summary: Bella is the only survivor of a virus which has killed off the human race. Is there anyone-anything-still alive on this dying planet? Entry for the Twilight 25 Challenge. Post-apocalyptic good times. Bella/Edward
1. Dark

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Dark**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.  
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Chapter 1: Dark**

When I closed my eyes, I could almost forget. I could imagine that everyone I loved was still alive, that the house was quiet just because it was night and everyone was asleep. I could pretend. I didn't know what was worse: simply accepting the present, or deluding myself as much as I could, only to be crushed over and over again when I opened my eyes and could not ignore the evidence in front of me, plain as day.

It was still my bed. It was still my home, but no one else was here. No one else would ever _be_ here. I shivered under my comforter. Charlie had bought me this comforter when I started high school. I'd told him I was too old now for my pink gingham. I'd been pretty snotty about it, too—I was ashamed to think of it now, full of regret—but he'd come home a few days later with this beautiful bedding set, grown up, feminine, but not frilly. It was perfect. _Charlie_. I choked back a sob. I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep here again tonight.

When I opened my eyes, it was as dark as it had been when I'd squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pretend that we were back, ten, five, even one year ago, before the epidemic. I didn't know what time it was; the battery in my watch had died months ago. I wished I'd had an old wind-up watch—I think Grandpa Swan had had one. But even I could find it, even if it hadn't been destroyed or looted, how would I know how to set the time? And did time matter anymore?

I opened the door, not needing light to get from my room to Charlie's. I tried to push away my last memories of him alive, of him pale and shivering and covered in sweat. "Stay away," he'd rasped. "It's too late for me now."

"But, Daddy, I … don't care. Don't leave me. Daddy, Daddy," I'd said. My cheeks were wet, and I realized I was muttering _Daddy, Daddy, Daddy_ out loud. I angrily wiped the tears away. I tried to picture Charlie healthy, Charlie picking me up and swinging me around while hugging me tightly, Charlie coming home reeking of fish and the outdoors, that special smile he had just for me. "You need to live, baby girl," he'd said, clumsily waving me away with a leaden arm. "You need to live for me."

Charlie picking me up from school. Charlie taking me to the mall to buy new shoes. Charlie burning our dinner and flapping his oven-mitted hands like a befuddled Muppet, trying his best not to swear in front of me. I forced the good memories in, breathing heavily and clenching my hands into fists.

But the bad ones always seeped back through the crevices: the day he'd come home, eyes wide and glazed over, stumbling as he tried to unlace his shoes. Collapsing in the foyer. I was stronger than I thought, letting him lean on my shoulder as I guided him up the stairs and to bed. "It's nothing," he'd said. "It's not … _that_." But we both knew he was lying. He was one of the last ones to get sick, and I'd foolishly thought—or had forced myself to believe—that maybe we Swans were made of such hearty stock that we'd survive this, that we'd be spared.

I was at his door now, and I pushed it open lightly. It still smelled like him, mostly like Charlie alive, but the scent of death clung to the walls like an oily residue. I crept to the bed where he'd died, where he'd slipped away like sand through my fingers.

"Stay away, Bella," he'd said. "Please." But I wouldn't. I knew when Charlie went that I was going to be alone. I didn't want to live alone. I wanted to catch what he had, to go with him. So many had already died, so many friends. God, I wished anyone else from school had survived, even bitchy Lauren Mallory. What I would have given just to hear her say something obnoxious about my clothes or my face right now. Why was I chosen? Why was I seemingly immune to this mystery virus? Was this my hell? I had crawled into bed with him as he tried to push me weakly away. I'd wrapped my arms around him and rocked him to his final sleep. "_May the road rise up to meet you; may the wind be always at your back_," I'd sung to him as his spirit escaped with his final breath.

I crawled into the bed, next to the pillows I'd dressed in Charlie's old clothes. If I tucked my head against the flannel and breathed deeply, I could almost imagine it was really him, even though the pillow had no warmth, no heartbeat. I snuggled against the shirt, the hard plastic buttons leaving an imprint on my cheek, and it soothed me enough that I felt a little drowsy again. I foggily remembered science class, when we'd learned about the Harlow experiments[1] on baby rhesus monkeys. With my head resting on Charlie's old shirt, I could understand why the monkeys would choose the terrycloth mom.

I buried my nose into Charlie's fading scent and tried to put out of my mind that I was lying in the place where he had died.

He had died only once. Death was just one small part of this bed. I tried to remember all the nights he was alive, sleeping here, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears from the vacuum of sound all around me.

In a few hours, it would be morning, a new day, whatever that meant now. It was meaningless. The sun would hang uselessly in the sky, a pretty bauble, nothing more. The sun, with its incongruous, even disrespectful cheeriness. What was there to shine about? Who would love your warmth? Who was left for you to nourish? I almost wished it just stayed dark all the time. It would be easier.

I closed my eyes and clutched the pillow tightly to me, praying for the oblivion that sleep would bring.

Outside, the air hung still and heavy, and I knew I was the only one breathing, the only heart beating.

I wished I could hear crickets, but it was just me, my chest rising and falling, the rushing of blood in my ears. It was just me.

And it would only be me, now and forever, amen.

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[1] You can read about the famous experiment here: www dot uoregon dot edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE dot htm

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A/N: So my Twilight 25 Challenge this time will be a multi-chapter fic. Let's see if I can pull it off. I hope you like post-apocalyptic good times.  
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	2. Prelude

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Prelude**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 2: Prelude**

_I was doing my homework in the living room while Charlie was flipping through channels. I got good grades, so he didn't care where I worked on my assignments. It was nice quiet time we could spend together. The chatter from the TV barely filtered through my ears; it was mostly pleasant white noise that helped me focus. But something about this one news report … I didn't know. Of course we'd all been wary of H1N1. We'd all been advised to wash our hands, stay at home if we were sick, and for the most part, Forks was spared from the swine flu. "Don't call it that," Charlie used to say. "It's disrespectful to bacon." Then he would bow his head in reverence, observing a moment of silence for the holiest of meats._

_It was a small story. We'd gradually grown immune to stories about H1N1. It was the only way to live our lives. Neither of us wanted to live in fear. After all, every day Charlie faced danger and the possibility of being shot. Even though Forks was one of those leave-your-front-door-unlocked kind of places, being a cop, no matter where you were, was a dangerous job. We'd gotten used to blocking out the warnings from the CDC because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to leave the house, too afraid to breathe the air. And that was no way to live._

_But this story … why had it pierced through my stubbornly constructed walls? Why had it pulled me out of pre-calculus problems? _

**_Three people in Denver, Colorado, have died from complications of a mysterious, flu-like illness. Their family members each reported a severe fever, shakes, and sores. The Centers for Disease Control deny claims that the illness is related to H1N1._**

_I'd had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my belly through the short news item sandwiched between the latest celebrity scandal and the usual bipartisan bickering, and I instinctively leaned back against Charlie's legs, seeking security. "Don't worry, Bells," he'd said. "I'm sure it's nothing." I nodded and bent my head again over my math homework, calm for the moment, because he'd said it was okay. He'd always protect me; that's why he was here._

_The next day, ten were dead. The day after that, one hundred. It seemed confined to Denver. Legionnaire's Disease, they theorized. Food poisoning, some optimists suggested. The new millennium's plague, whispered the paranoid. The conspiracists said the government must have poisoned the water supply; the religious zealots said the End Times were near. People were afraid of bio-terrorism, of germ warfare._

_The government went to Denver immediately, trying to keep the city isolated. They shut down the airport, put roadblocks on the highways. They didn't understand what was happening, but they wanted to keep it confined. America could lose one city. The rest of us would be safe._

"_What's going to happen to us, Dad?" I asked as we sat watching the news in the middle of the day. They'd closed the schools in Forks "just in case," even though the strange illness seemed to be localized, far from us._

"_They'll figure it out, kid," he'd said. And I chose to believe him because I was too afraid not to._

_The world kept its eyes on Denver. The few brave, or incredibly stupid, national news teams stationed there showed us a city dying, civilization devolving to its basest forms: the looting, the hoarding, the random killings, and other sprees of violence. It was as if once they knew they were doomed, they were living out their darkest fantasies—after all, they believed they had nothing to lose. Charlie shut the TV off when we saw the first live-on-TV murder. "We don't need to see this," he said._

_Day by day, Charlie stocked up on water, canned goods, wind-up flashlights and radios. "Do you think that'll be necessary, Dad?" I asked, biting my lip as I helped him unload the car from yet another trip to the grocery store._

"_Don't know," he shrugged, "but I'd rather be over-prepared." He saw the look on my face and drew me in for a hug. "Don't worry, kid, nothing's going to happen here. We just won't have to go grocery shopping for ten years. I hope you like Beefaroni."_

"_That's not even a word, Dad, let alone a food," I said, poking him gently in the ribs. _

_Within the month, Denver was gone. _

_No one talked about it. After the initial hysteria, we pretended nothing had happened, that Denver had just been a fairy tale, an imaginary place. The TV in our home grew dusty, neglected, as Charlie and I dared not turn on the news. In town, everyone smiled with tight lips, nodded their heads curtly in greeting. School started up again, because life had to go on, but not even the teachers could focus on education. We all lived in a gray spiral of panic under a fragile, calm exterior. No one wanted to admit how scared we all were. Being scared would make it real. It wasn't real. If we didn't believe in it, it did not exist._

_Maybe our denial worked. A few months passed, and we thought maybe it had all been a fluke. We were safe. Denver had been contained. Denver had never existed. The world would go on turning; we would go on living._

_Charlie's friend Billy Black was over one night with his son Jacob. It was no secret that Jacob had always had a bit of a thing for me. It was flattering, maybe a little embarrassing. Charlie and Billy were talking quietly in the kitchen while drinking beer, leaving Jacob and me in the living room._

"_Hey, so what do you think?" Jacob asked, suddenly turning toward me on the couch._

"_Think about what?" I asked._

"_Do you think the world is ending?"_

"_What? No, of course not," I said a bit too stridently. "What are they saying back where you guys are?" The Blacks were members of the Quileute tribe and lived in the reservation at La Push._

"_I don't get to hear most of what's going on," he admitted, "but there have been a lot of meetings of tribal elders after Dad thinks I've gone to bed. I think things are bad, Bella, and I think no one is going to be ready for what's coming."_

_I shoved him playfully in the shoulder. "You're just trying to scare me, you with your ghost stories and Doomsday warnings."_

"_What if it were just the two of us left in the world?" he asked. He laughed nervously. "Would you repopulate the world with me?"_

"_Gross, Jacob. Gross," I said, shoving him again. "Don't talk like that."_

"_Why not?" he asked, jutting his jaw out._

"_First of all, nothing is going to happen. Second of all, don't make me think of your junk."_

_Jacob whistled low. "Ouch. Not even if I were the last man on earth," he said, shaking his head with wounded male pride._

"_Don't be silly," I said, smiling. "You're not a man." _

_He rolled his eyes at me. "Am too a man," he muttered. "I've got the short and curlies to prove it."_

"_Seriously, dude. Gross," I said, whacking him in the chest with the back of my hand._

_I tried to remember the last time I saw the Blacks. After Denver, things went back to normal for so long that I had stopped trying to memorize every moment, believing it to be my last. Everything was fine, and death was once more just an abstract concept, just a word on a page._

The weak sunlight woke me in Charlie's room, and I remembered, again, that I was alone. You'd think I would have gotten used to it by now, but I'd dream of my normal life, of the time when my biggest worry was wondering if anyone was going to ask me to prom, how I did on the SATs, whether Charlie would be able to afford college. I even still had nightmares of showing up to finals not having studied and having lost my pants. I'd wake up in a sweat and remember the present, and laugh bitterly to myself that there used to be a time where my fears were so mundane.

Evenings were hard, but mornings were harder, because sleep made me forget. Sleep made me feel like a normal girl with silly, shallow problems, with hopes and dreams and fears, with friends and family. When I woke up, I'd remember that I wasn't normal at all. If I were normal, I'd be dead, like the rest of them. If I were normal, I wouldn't be alone.

Was I imagining it, or was the sun was fading a little bit more every day? Was it not as warm on my cheek as the sun of my youth? I got out of Charlie's bed carefully and opened the window. I examined the sun with squinted eyes, and it gazed back at me with its impassive, pale yellow face. I stretched my hand out the window to cup some sunlight in my palm, but I felt just the air.

I walked back to the bed and tucked pillow-Charlie back in, straightened his sheets. "Morning, Dad," I said, even though I knew he wasn't there. I got dressed because I needed the routine, slipped on faded, fraying jeans, an old t-shirt. I raked my fingers through my hair, greasy and dirty. It hadn't rained in a while, and I didn't have enough water at the moment for such frivolities as washing.

My stomach rumbled, and I wished for the sound of eggs frying in a cast-iron pan, thick, buttermilk pancakes oozing with syrup, strips of bacon, the holiest meat. I could almost imagine there was a big breakfast waiting for me as I walked to the kitchen with my eyes closed, but I knew there would be only cans, the manual can-opener, and utensils wiped clean with a damp cloth waiting for me. I opened a can of fruit cocktail, hating the way the spoon tasted when it had scraped against the metal of the can. I drank out of the old milk jug I'd filled with rainwater, taking only enough sips to wet my mouth.

I read the morning paper, the last one that had been delivered before Forks had been hit. I knew every headline and story by heart, every punchline of every comic strip. But I read it sitting cross-legged on the faded living room carpet anyway. The hours were long, and there was little to do. I waved the remote control at the TV and pretended that I was channel surfing. "There's never anything good on," I joked weakly out loud, my voice sounding strange in the dead quiet of the house. I walked up to the TV and dragged my finger across the dusty screen. I tried to draw a smiley face, but I didn't have even that in me. The mouth was flat, turned down at the end. "I know how you feel," I said to the face, and I wiped my fingertip on my jeans.

"I'm going out," I announced to no one at all, and walked out the front door, leaving it wide open. After I'd walked down the driveway, I turned around and saw the door swaying slightly, as if it were waving me goodbye.

I waved back, not caring how silly I must have looked, until I remembered that there was no one to see me anyway.

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**A/N: Fun times, yeah? With Feisty, it's always a party. Of doom.**

**Oh and also, these chapters will get longer when I get into the story proper. La la la.  
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	3. Collide

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Collide**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 3: Collide**

Swinging my arms casually, I walked in the middle of the road, right along the double yellow line, no longer having to worry about traffic. I was making my daily rounds. I'd pretty much raided all the houses around for non-perishable food, but some houses had reeked too much of decomposing bodies, those poor souls who'd been the last ones in their families to go, with no one to take them somewhere for burial. I periodically checked those houses to see if the stench had faded enough to bear entering and searching for anything I could use.

I thought again of how glad I was that I could be there for Charlie. I thought about my last moments with him, with his lifeless body, wrapping him in the flat sheet so I could pull him along the floor, drag him down the stairs. I couldn't believe he was no longer in that familiar body. Where had he gone? He was still warm. As I tugged the corner of the sheet, I got a sick feeling in my stomach as his head thumped heavily against each stair. "Sorry, oh god, I'm sorry," I kept saying. I knew he wasn't in there anymore, not really, but oh, it was hard to believe I wasn't hurting him. _Nothing can hurt him now_, I reminded myself. I found a tiny sliver of relief in that. I could feel some comfort thinking that Charlie was no longer suffering, no longer afraid.

If I focused on him, on his escape, his peace, I could keep myself from panicking that I was the only one left.

I could not have been in my head as I dug the shallow grave in the backyard. The flat sheet was surely stained by now, his heavy weight crushing the blades of grass, releasing the chlorophyll as his body flattened a path in the lawn. I knew I wouldn't be able to drag him very far, and there was no way I could lift him into the truck to take him anywhere. Besides, this way, he'd always be near me. I began to dig with the shovel my dad had used to plant trees and make our home beautiful. My hands soon were sore and aching and beginning to blister, my back slick with sweat from the effort of digging into the unfeeling earth. I was grateful for the physical pain; it made me focus on the task at hand and not on what Charlie's death signified: my complete isolation.

The cemeteries had been filled to capacity for a while, long before Charlie fell ill. We were one of the last—if not _the_ last—families hit. They'd started piling bodies in mass graves, shoveling lye on top, the survivors wearing facemasks as they worked. _Grim_ was the mood that hung heavy in the air. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard anyone laugh, or even seen anyone smile.

As Charlie was dying, he had tried though. He told corny jokes. "Smile for me, baby girl," he'd said as he shivered, and I'd tried so hard to give him what he needed, but my face was stiff, my muscles already forgetting what once had felt so natural. _It's maybe his last wish_, I admonished myself. _Just fucking smile, already_. But my heart felt heavy; my cheeks were concrete.

I thought of all this, as I did almost every day, as I walked along the main road. "Hello?" I called to the sky. "I'm Bella Swan!" I shouted. "I am alive!" I wanted to hear my voice bounce off something; even an echo would have been a comfort. But it was always nothing answering me back.

I knew what remained of Forks so well that I could have walked around with my eyes closed. Fifty-two steps to get to the end of the driveway. Two thousand and forty-seven steps to the center of town. I counted. Every day, I counted, because what else was there to do? Sometimes I'd go to the park and lie on a park bench. I didn't want to lie on the grass, because I didn't know if there were bodies decomposing below me. I'd lie on a park bench and look at the sky, try to see my future in the clouds. I remembered being a kid and imagining heaven in the sky.

I wasn't sure what I believed these days.

Today I stretched out on my favorite bench, the one with the clearest view of the firmament, and looked at the clouds drifting by, lazily evolving in the wind. Sometimes the clouds looked like faces. Sometimes I could have sworn I saw people I remembered. I talked to them as if they could hear me. Today there was a cloud that looked like Mike Newton, a popular kid from my class. "Hi, Mike," I said to the cloud. "Do you remember me? What's new? What colleges do you think you'll be applying to?"

The cloud mutated, no longer looking remotely human. "Goodbye, Mike," I said. "It was nice talking to you. Thanks for stopping by."

I hadn't always talked to myself, not at the beginning. For so long I was in shock, walking around like a zombie. How long had I remained silent? I used to mark the days in a calendar, take a chunky crayon like we did in kindergarten and X out the days, but then the calendar ran out, and no one was alive to make new ones. It was after the calendar ran out of days and my thoughts grew sluggish and strange, that I dreamed I had forgotten how to speak, was devolving, turning back into a primate. That morning I vowed I would speak aloud, and as much as I could, no matter how silly I felt.

And the strange thing was, it was hard at first. I _had_ forgotten how to form words; my mouth felt rusty from disuse and neglect. I started reading books out loud to myself. Sometimes I would take a book out to the backyard and read to Charlie. And then I started talking to myself, imagining conversations with others.

I watched the clouds transform above my head and looked for more familiar faces, but today wasn't a good day. Every cloud now resembled an inkblot. I giggled to myself, thinking I must be losing my mind if ambiguous shapes were beginning to resemble only other ambiguous shapes. Absentmindedly I picked at the peeling paint on the bench.

I suddenly felt a strange urge to _run_, to run for all I was worth. I sprinted around the perimeter of the park, my hair trailing behind me. I was breathing hard and sweating, and it felt good. I whooped and hollered and ran until my lungs burned. There was a statue in the center of the park, some military hero on a horse. I tried to remember what I'd once read about the legs of the horse—which position meant the man had died in battle? I scrunched my face up, trying to wring the memory out of my brain. My legs felt twitchy from stopping, so I ran again, did one more lap. I jogged toward the statue with my eyes closed, 289 steps from the edge of the park to the statue, but on step 276 I tripped over … something, something I was fairly sure hadn't been there five minutes ago. My breath caught in my throat, and I let out a shriek while windmilling my arms and trying to regain my balance. I opened my eyes just as I slammed my foot down on something hard. I thought the statue of the man on the horse had toppled over, until I looked up and saw the man and horse, just as they'd been the last time I'd checked.

_I must be dreaming_, I thought, because nothing ever changed. I was afraid to look down to see where my foot had landed. Why? There would be nothing that could be worse than what had already happened to me. "Don't be childish, Bella," I said, my cheeks still flushed from running. "It's nothing."

I let my gaze drift down and clapped my hands over my mouth when I saw the body, so motionless it may have been a statue. He—it—whatever—was beautiful, like an angel fallen from heaven. I knelt down, pretty certain now that I was dreaming, and I traced the lines of his face, cool and perfect and still. I looked up to the skies to figure out how he'd gotten here. I gazed above me and murmured, "Where did you come from?"

Something cold gripped my arm like a vise, and I screamed. I tried to pull my hand away but couldn't. I looked down, and the statue had moved, had encircled my wrist with a stone finger and thumb. I was definitely dreaming. If this were a dream, I needn't be afraid. So I tried to still my breath and make sense of the situation. _You're safe, you're safe, you're safe_, I reminded myself. _Nothing can harm you now, in your dreams or in waking_.

But then, the statue talked to me. His eyes remained closed, but I saw his mouth move. I definitely saw the jaw tense, the lips form words I could barely hear.

"Isabella," the statue whispered, "is that really you?"

I was so used to speaking to things and not hearing anything back that I was struck silent.

"How can you still be alive?" he said.

I swallowed a few times, afraid I'd finally gone completely crazy. "Do I know you?" I finally asked.

"Isabella Swan," he said with effort, eyes still closed, and then he was silent again, his fingers still shackling my wrist in its icy grasp.

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**A/N: OMG, you guys, thanks for making "I Wanna Eff You Like a Masochistic Lion Because of Your Pools of Brown Diarrhea Eyes: The Worst Story Ever Told" the winner of the Worst Story Ever contest! Now it will be made into a shitteous film! Hooray!**


	4. Rapacious

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Rapacious**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 4: Rapacious**

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" I yelled, not so much to the statue but to myself. I took my free hand and slapped my cheek again and again. "Wake the fuck up!" I wanted out of this dream.

My other hand was going numb from the icy fingers on my wrist—I wasn't sure if it was because the stony fingers were cutting off my circulation or because of the coldness of the hand itself. Maybe both. I tried to pry the fingers off, but they formed an unbreakable circle. It was as if the statue had been cast around me. I looked at the beautiful, horrible mouth again. The lips were closed, inanimate—had they really spoken? Had I just imagined they had said my name?

The body wasn't moving—it couldn't be alive. I used my free hand to feel for a pulse, but why would a statue have a pulse? "Speak again," I said tentatively, unsure if I was hoping for silence or for speech. Speech would mean I was crazy; silence would mean I was alone, as always. Which was worse?

I found myself thinking of that movie with Jimmy Stewart and the giant rabbit that only he could see. Was it so bad being crazy? Would I rather be sane and alone? When you were the last person on earth, was sanity even relevant? I thought of the last few months, the days running into each other, my carefully regimented routine, eating everything cold out of cans, talking to the clouds … I looked at the statue that I wasn't sure had called my name. The decision was easy.

I chose insanity.

"Hey," I said, shaking the statue by the shoulder. "Wake up."

He didn't move.

"Jesus, at least let me the fuck go," I said. My hand was turning white and red and purple.

Silence and stillness.

I played a movie in my head, a montage of my last few months, of all the things I had done that I hadn't believed myself capable of: burying my father, breaking into people's houses while tiptoeing around mummified corpses, living with the silence in my head, being utterly _alone_. I was stronger than I believed. And I wasn't going to let some stone statue, alive or not, hold me prisoner. "Godfuckingdammit, you are going to let go of my arm right now!" I yanked my arm hard and made my hand as small as I could, imagining my flesh turning to liquid and flowing through the gaps between the stone fingers.

It hurt a fuck of a lot, but I freed myself. My skin scraped against the rough, cold fingers, an impossible stone fingernail digging into the back of my hand. It was like a tiny X-Acto knife wound, precise and merciless, a surgeon's artful touch. I hissed from the sudden pain and watched in wonder as the clean cut slowly filled with blood, a tiny hidden spring. For some reason I was reminded of _Tuck Everlasting_ and the stack of pebbles hiding the spring of eternal life.

My blood was dark, startling red, and the air began to smell faintly metallic. In the back of my head I wondered if I were anemic, if I had been getting enough protein from all the canned meat product I'd been eating. I continued letting the blood ooze out of the cut. I was so fascinated by the life flowing through and out of my veins that I didn't notice at first that the statue had started to stir. But then there was too much movement in my peripheral vision, and I focused again on the mysterious sculpture.

I didn't try to make sense of what I saw: the coal-black eyes flying open, the mouth opening slightly. I thought I heard a groan. The eyes, the eyes were wild, vicious. The gaze flew to my hand, so desperate, so full of desire that my skin felt on fire.

"_Please_," I thought I heard the statue whisper, but the voice was dry and hollow, desiccated. My mouth felt dry just listening to him, my skin itchy like it would be from dry radiator heat in the winters, back when we had winters and radiators.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"_Please_," the statue said again.

He'd come to life again after I'd been cut. Could he feel my pain? Or was it the smell of the fresh blood? I waved my hand near his face, and when I looked in his eyes, I knew he could easily kill me.

"_No_," he gasped. "Take it away." He spoke with such surprising force that I jerked my hand away, and one fat, perfect drop of blood fell onto his lip. His tongue darted out to taste it, and his eyes closed again. His forehead wrinkled, and I noticed his hands were clenched into fists. He grasped the grass in handfuls as if wishing the blades of grass would tether him to the ground. His whole body shook; it seemed as if he were fighting something in himself. "I … won't … harm you, Isabella Swan," he said through gritted teeth, purging himself of each word as if he'd swallowed a bottle of ipecac.

I didn't know what possessed me, but I softly asked, "Do you need the blood?"

"Don't offer what you can't provide," he said, grinding his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut.

"I'm still bleeding," I shrugged, pinching together the loose skin on either side of the cut. A few more drops beaded up. "Here," I said, tipping my hand over his mouth and letting the drops fall in, one, two, three. He moaned, sliding his tongue inside his mouth, and suddenly I felt like Lucy Pevensie with her cordial of fire-flower juice. His eyes began to flutter open, and his fingers twitched.

"Can you … sit up?" I asked.

"I can try," he said weakly.

I stood up and held his hands, leaning back with all my weight. He felt like marble, living marble, if ever there was such a thing. His body creaked to sitting position, and I barely noticed that his firm grip had bruised both of my hands.

"Thank you," he said.

"What did I do?" My cut was already starting to clot. I wondered if the clean incision would leave a scar.

"Haven't … eaten … in so long," he gasped. "No food anywhere."

I thought of the basement walls lined floor to ceiling with cans. "There's food at my house," I offered.

"Can't eat that," he said.

"Can't or won't? Don't be proud or chivalrous. I'm offering you food. I'll share."

"Can't," he said again. His eyes flicked over again to the back of my hand, the cut.

It all clicked. "You can drink only blood, can't you?"

He didn't answer, but from the way his eyes followed my hand, I knew it was true. His situation was far worse than mine. As far as I knew, I was the only person alive. I noticed how gaunt he looked, how his cold skin clung to the bone, how sharp his cheekbones appeared, how deep the hollows of his eyes.

"Haven't had … human blood in so long," he whispered hoarsely.

I had chosen insanity, so I did not feel too foolish when I asked, "Are you a vampire?"

His eyes and mouth opened wide in shock, and after a few moments of staring at me, he simply nodded.

"Are you the only one left?"

He swallowed a few times, his eyes gazing at something far away, long buried in his memory. "Yes, I think I am."

"Are you real?" I immediately shook my head and said, "No, don't answer that. It doesn't matter." I crouched back down next to him.

We sat quietly, and I watched my skin knit back together. "Can you stand, do you think?" I asked.

"I used up the last of my energy to find you, Isabella Swan. Your blood revived me, but I'll need more to move, and I can't ask you for that."

"Why can't you?"

He laughed sharply. "Don't you have any sense of self-preservation? Do you even know what you are offering?"

"Fuck my self-preservation," I said. "Self-preservation means I spend what's left of my life completely alone. What good does that do me?"

Impetuously I grabbed his cold hand and dug his fingernail across my hand again, reopening the wound. "Drink," I ordered, and I held my hand to his lips, his cold, lifeless lips.

He began to suck, his animal side taking over, and I heard him swallow a few times before he forced himself to stop, spitting out the blood in his mouth and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "No," he said firmly. "I won't."

I looked where he'd spat, and my blood was diluted, pinkish. It reminded me of children's aspirin. Tentatively I reached out a hand to touch his side. I could feel every rib. I could see his hipbones jutting above his pants, which were so worn they must have once fit perfectly, maybe been his favorite pair. And now they hung off him like an old snakeskin.

"It'll kill you," he said. "And it will kill me too."

"I don't understand," I said. "Why will it kill you? Vampires drink blood. That's what they do. Or is there something I don't know?"

"The virus," he said. "Tainted blood … that's why I'm alone. I was the only one who had the strength not to feed. We … can't die of starvation."

"I'm the only one alive," I said. "I've been the only one for a while. I think … I think the virus would have gotten me by now."

I shoved my hands between my knees and stared at my stretched-out legs. I could feel his gaze sweep over me.

"You _are_ a curiosity, Isabella Swan," he said finally, slowly bringing himself to standing. He held out a hand to help me up.

"Why do you know my name?" I asked, allowing him to pull me upright, although I needed no help.

His eyes grew darker. "It is right that you shouldn't remember me. You never should have known me. It was selfish for me to come back, but … I had to come say goodbye."

We began to walk arm in arm, my routine already broken. I turned around and started back for the house, several hours before I usually returned. The sun shone weakly in our faces, and I did not turn around to see if one shadow or two were cast behind me, attached to my heels, following me home across the barren earth.


	5. Fragments

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Fragments**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 5: Fragments**

His arm felt like an iron rod wrapped in fabric. I could tell he was unbreakable and strong, but he still seemed so frail, wasted away. I was reminded of _Hansel and Gretel_, how Hansel would stick a chicken bone out of the cage bars whenever the nearsighted witch asked to see his fingers to see if he were fat enough to eat.

"It's not very far," I said, glancing to see where we were. "Just about eight hundred steps more."

"Is that a rough estimate?" he asked, curious.

I blushed. "It's, um, actually pretty accurate."

"You counted?"

"I've been here a long time. Counting helps. Counting is better than silence."

I used my peripheral vision to look at his face, to try to remember him. Why did he know my name? Was it just the hunger in his eyes, how he was just skin on bone that made me unable to recognize him? If he were at a healthy weight, would I remember?

"What are you thinking, Isabella?" he asked so quietly that I wasn't certain I hadn't just imagined it.

I kept my eyes on my feet as I counted steps backwards from eight hundred. "Nothing … I mean … you know me, and you came to say goodbye, but I don't know who you are. I'm sorry. Should I know you?"

"You shouldn't," he said with such sadness that I wanted to stop and lie down in the middle of the road and cry, cry as I hadn't really let myself yet, because if I cried as much as I wanted, I'd never be able to stop. No, I only let out some tears, just enough so I wouldn't drown. Just enough to keep the levies from breaking.

I didn't know him, and he already filled me with such a feeling of loss.

"Have we met?" I asked, swallowing back the lump in my throat and trying to shake myself of the urge to lie in the road and melt into tears.

"Do you remember your first day of school here, Isabella?"

I closed my eyes as we walked (6_96, 695, 694, _I counted to myself) and tried to remember that other life, the life before. I'd just moved here to be with Charlie, after living with my mom (_Don't think of her; don't think of Mom_, I thought, gripping more tightly to the stranger's bony, iron arm) for years. I remembered the boys falling all over themselves to help me get to classes, my embarrassment at their attention, my wish to disappear. _654, 653, 652_ …

Little shards of memory came back at me, and I began to piece them together in my head like a stained glass window. _Lunch in the cafeteria that smelled like Lysol, sour milk, and tater tots. I was convinced that cafeterias always smelled the same everywhere._

_603, 602, 601 …_

_The girls were sizing me up, wondering if I would be competition for the boys they'd already claimed as their own. They took in my lack of makeup, my barely brushed hair, tried to guess my cup size from my loose-fitting top …_

"I remember a lot of it," I said.

_Jessica and Angela had decided I wouldn't be a threat, so they helped me find my classes and told me all the gossip about the teachers—which one was a closet alcoholic, which one was rumored to have had an "inappropriate" relationship with a long-gone student when she was only a sophomore_.

"I remember the first time I saw you," he said, leaning against me, breathing laboriously. I slowed my steps, feeling his strength waning. _595, 594, 593 …_

_Sitting down in English while everyone else was standing and chatting, wishing I could be invisible, wondering if this place would ever feel like home … _

"When was that?" I asked, my eyes still closed, my mind still counting down. I was trying to fit this strange creature into my memory of that day. Was he by my locker? Standing near the water fountain? In P.E. class? Nothing seemed right. As if he were a paper doll, I moved him from place to place in my mental image of the school. He didn't fit anywhere.

He said just one word, "Biology."

_Biology. Mr. Banner. The room that smelled of formaldehyde and had that plaster skeleton dressed appropriately for the seasons. On my first day, it was wearing a Mariner's jersey. _

"You were in biology with me?" I asked, frowning. I didn't remember.

"I sat next to you."

"Did you?" That didn't seem right. I was the only one who had no lab partner. I sat by myself. It was just me at that lab table. _537, 536, 535 …_

He coughed. "I'm afraid … I wasn't very kind to you."

I opened my eyes and shook my head. "You were never there. I sat alone. I sat alone all year."

"You sat alone because of me."

"You must be mistaken." I didn't know why I was being so stubborn about this. Maybe it was because if this memory was faulty, then I couldn't believe _anything_ that I remembered. It would mean my mind was not reliable, and somehow losing the past was as scary as losing my future—maybe even scarier. I dropped his arm and ran ahead of him, my counting growing faster in my head. I counted down by fives.

At first, he tried to keep up with me, but then he stopped walking. He stood there with shoulders slumped, head bowed. His eyes were squeezed shut in … pain? Guilt?

"Isabella," he said finally, and he raised his hand to my cheek haltingly. His hand hovered near my face, and I wondered if he would actually touch me. It trembled, and I could see each tendon of the skeletal hand. It would have been terrifying if his face hadn't been so pitiable.

I couldn't bear to watch anymore, so I closed my eyes. There was silence, just my breathing and the beating of my heart. And then a feather's touch, cold fingertips on my cheek, and like a flash, there was a new memory, so sharp it cut into my brain like a scalpel.

_There was only one seat available in the room, and there was a boy sitting there, a boy so beautiful he was almost unreal. Mr. Banner pointed to the seat and invited me to sit after handing me a textbook. I shuffled to the table, book clutched to my chest, palms sweating. "Hi," I said shyly, not making eye contact. He shifted away from me as if I smelled bad, as if he couldn't stand the fact that I had to share the bench with him. _

_As if he hated me, without even knowing my name._

_He leapt from his seat as if it were on fire, and he ran to Mr. Banner, talking low in his ear. Mr. Banner nodded, and the boy ran out the room. I could hear his footsteps in the hallway, fast and frightened, eventually fading into nothing, blending with the ticking of the second hand of the large clock at the front of the classroom. My eyes felt hot; my vision blurred. My head bent, tears dropped straight onto the worn cover of the biology textbook. I didn't wipe them away. The two fat tears sat on the cover, acting like tiny magnifying glasses, until they were absorbed, buckling the paper._

"_How was your first day, kid?" Charlie asked when I slammed the front door shut, my whole body feeling numb.  
_

_I shrugged. "Okay, I guess."_

_He took one look at my face and asked, "How'd you like ice cream sundaes for dinner?"_

_I dreaded the next day of school, but when I got to biology, the seat was empty. I was too ashamed to ask my new schoolmates if they knew about the beautiful boy who was gone._

_I decided then that I had made him up. Just like that. It was a choice. When I saw the warped cover of my biology textbook, I created a memory: a water bottle sweating with condensation, carelessly placed on top of the book. This is what happened. This is all that could have happened._

"You're not real," I said firmly. "You never existed."

"I did. I do," he said.

"No," I said, holding my head in my hands.

"Open your eyes, Isabella."

"No."

"How many steps, Isabella?"

I whispered, "Five hundred seventeen."

"Take me," he said, placing his hand my arm. "I'll count with you."

"Five hundred sixteen, five hundred fifteen," he murmured in unison with me as we began to walk again, in a voice so hollow it could have been my own echoing in my head.

And we walked, making no conversation, only counting backwards, until I could see my house, the door still swinging a little in the wind.

_Ten, nine, eight …_

What happened when he walked through my door?

What happened at zero?


	6. Honest

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Honest**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**

* * *

Chapter 6: Honest**

As we both counted down to zero, we crossed over the threshold, the two of us, arm in arm. I stopped counting. I didn't like counting into negative numbers. Negative numbers made me think about absence, void, vacuums, and the end of the world. Zero was where things stopped naturally. I could still handle zero.

I was practically carrying, rather than leading, him into the house. "Want to sit down?" I asked, depositing him on the couch. He sank down into the dusty cushions, wearily slumping flat onto his back. It struck me that this was the first time since Charlie died that anyone else had been in the house. I wanted to play hostess. I wanted to treat this stranger as a guest.

"Can I fetch you anything?" I asked stupidly. He just shook his head, closing his eyes. He looked exhausted. "Hold on a second," I said, as if he had the energy to dash away before I got back. I walked up the stairs and changed into a slightly dressier top. Something I would have worn on picture day, maybe. The top hung loosely, slipping off one bony shoulder. Had I lost that much weight? I brushed my hair, wistfully remembering how I'd use this hairbrush to ease out the tangles in my hair before school … _before_. I looked at my reflection in my dresser mirror. I was paler, thinner, but there was still a rosy tint to my cheeks. There was still blood within me, pumping and carrying oxygen, giving life.

Giving life.

I descended the stairs and found him exactly as I'd left him on the couch. He had his arm draped over his face, shielding himself from the faint light that filtered through the dirty windowpanes. "I'm back," I announced as I sat in the recliner opposite him. Charlie's chair.

"Did you go somewhere?" he asked faintly.

His disinterest cut deeply into me, and, unbidden, another flash of that look of hatred on his face from my long-buried memory resurfaced. My face burned with shame. _Shame? What do I have to be ashamed of?_

"Why did you do it?" I demanded coolly from Charlie's chair. I sat cross-legged and rocked back and forth as I waited for his answer.

"What?"

"Why did you leave? You were there, right? My first day of school? You were real?"

"Yes, I was real. Yes, I was there."

"So why did you do it?" I started to rock harder, hearing the springs creak and complain beneath me.

He wouldn't look at me, wouldn't remove his arm from across his eyes.

"What was wrong with me? What had I ever done to you?" I rocked furiously. _Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. _I kept waiting for an answer, but he was still as a statue.

"For fuck's sake, say _something_." I pounded my fists on the padded recliner armrests, sending up a cloud of dust. I remembered reading somewhere that 75% of dust was made of dead skin cells. Was any part of Charlie still in this dust cloud? I tried to catch particles, desperately wanting to hold a part of him in my hand again.

The figure on the couch finally stirred. I could hear him swallow from across the room, and I imagined his throat as dry as sand. My throat felt parched in sympathy. I thought longingly of the jug of rainwater in the kitchen, but I wasn't getting up until I had answers. "Well?"

"It's not so easy, Isabella," he said. "It's … I'm not proud of what I did. But I kept you alive."

"_You_ kept _me_ alive?" The buried shame washed over me in waves, and I remembered how I'd come home from school and re-imagine my first day, force the new, altered memory to become the truth. There had never been a beautiful boy sitting next to me in class. _He was never there. _He ran away when he saw me. _He was never there_. Every night I'd repeat it to myself, my eyes closed, picturing the biology room, the lab stool next to me empty. I meditated on the words and the doctored image until I'd worn grooves into my neural pathways, until the memory stuck, until I believed it was real. Now that he was in front of me, I was furious that he'd so casually wrecked my first days in Forks. How many nights had I blamed myself? _If only you were prettier. If only you weren't __**you**_**. **It had been unbearable. It was easier to try to fool myself into thinking I'd dreamed it.

"Alice—my sister, she can see things, the future. I mean, she _could_ see things," he said, his eyes still closed. "She warned me before we went to school today that I was at a crossroads. 'Be careful,' she said. 'Change is coming.'"

"And?" My rocking had slowed, but my fingers twitched, my body humming with restless energy. "Was she right?"

"Her visions, they are—_were_—only one facet of the possible future, if you can imagine the future like a many-sided jewel."

I didn't ever imagine the future, but if I had to, I wouldn't picture a jewel. The future was more like the line of the horizon in a desert, extending into infinity, unchanging and hopeless.

"So," he continued, "I took it with a grain of salt, as I always did. But then you walked into class, and …" He stopped, somehow managing to be even stiller than he was a moment earlier.

We sat in silence, and I willed him to speak, but he did not budge.

"What?" I asked. "What happened next?"

"I wanted to … I almost did … kill you right there."

My blood ran cold, and I felt the same way I had the first time I was face to face with a corpse in the street, the flies gathered in its still-moist eyes. "You … wanted me dead?" I asked in a tiny voice, and I had trouble choking back tears. "But why? What's wrong with me?"

"Wrong with you?" He laughed weakly. "Isabella, I'm a _vampire_. I'm a demon—it's my nature."

"But you didn't want to kill anyone else. Just me," I said, picking at a loose thread on the armrest.

"Over the years I'd learned to control my bloodlust. But something about you … Alice was right. I wanted to feel your bones snap under me, feel the warm gush of blood as I tore into your flesh. I'd never felt so out of control in my life."

I shivered, but I couldn't explain the sudden warmth I felt knowing that he'd wanted to … consume me. Me, out of all the others.

"I ran away, and my family came with me. I knew I couldn't stay near you, because I _would_ kill you. I controlled myself for those moments when you were near enough for me to twist your head, kill you quickly … but how would I be the next day? Or the next? I knew I couldn't stay."

"So why did you come back?" I just noticed I had stopped moving, the only motion my chest rising and falling with my breath.

"I figured you were dead, like the rest. And I wanted to say goodbye, and to apologize. But I also …"

He was rather infuriating, the way he'd trail off just as things got interesting. "What?" I asked through gritted teeth, trying to hide my irritation.

"I wanted to know if I'd still feel you, that raw desire, even as I walked over the place where you were laid to rest." He still lay there with his arm over his eyes. I wondered if it were easier for him to say these things with his eyes closed, whether he was pretending he were alone.

"Where did you go? And how did you get here?"

"We went to join another coven in Alaska. Getting there was easier than coming back—we packed up our cars and belongings, and it took only a day. Coming back …" he shook his head a tiny bit under his arm. "I walked the whole way, stopping to rest only when my legs had no more strength. I thought I'd die coming back. I _prayed_ I'd die coming back, but only after I found you. If I found your grave, felt that stirring inside me one last time, I'd be all right with slipping away forever, although I didn't know how to die."

I asked him perhaps the simplest question of them all. "Who are you?"

He removed his arm from his face finally, and sat up with great effort. Wearily he opened his eyes. "My name is Edward Cullen, and I am the last of my kind."

"Hello, Edward," I said, getting out of the recliner, sending it rocking slowly, as if Charlie were sitting there still. "Let's do this right. Let's start again."

I held out my hand. "I'm Isabella Swan, but everyone calls me Bella. I'm also the last of my kind."

He took my hand in his cold, powdery one, and squeezed it weakly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bella."

"And you, Edward," I said, shaking his hand back. Despite his weak grip, it was like squeezing a stone.

"Your hand is warm," he said, closing his eyes again, drowning in the feeling.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't close your eyes. I want to see them."

He opened them slowly, as if it hurt him. I cupped his face in my hands and studied his face, gazed into his inky black eyes. I could see the pale outline of my face reflected back at me. His eyes were like the sky at midnight, the outside light reflected off them glinting like stars set in the firmament.

"I remember when the sky looked like that," I murmured sadly. "I miss the stars."

"The sun is a star," he pointed out.

"I suppose," I shrugged.

"It's dying too," he said.

"We all are. But not quickly enough." I'd been alone for so long, and I'd wanted to join everyone who was gone. But the truth was, I was too afraid to die on my own. And I knew Charlie wanted me to live as long as I could. I thought of his stocking up our house with enough food for years. It seemed like spitting in his face if I tossed my life away. I lived for him.

And sitting next to this beautiful boy who I had _not_ merely imagined, I thought that maybe, maybe now I could live for someone else too.


	7. Comfort

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Comfort**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 7: Comfort**

"When did the stars die?" I asked. I could feel Edward shrug from where he sat next to me.

"The stars are—were—so far away that by the time you see their light, it's been at least several years," he said. "The nearest star, after the sun, was Proxima Centauri, and it would take about four years for the light to reach us from there. So when Proxima Centauri died, it had already happened four years ago. The other stars, they're even farther away. Some of them hundreds of thousands of years away."

"They might have been dying before we were born."

"They might have already died before the earth was formed," he said.

"And all this time, I was living my life, and I never knew," I said, shivering and drawing my knees to my chest. "The world was always dying, and I worried that no one would ask me to prom." And I began to cry.

I felt his cold, trembling hand brush against my cheek, catching one tear. "Even your tears are warm," he said. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm just wondering why I was born, if this is how everything was going to end. Why bring me into this world where I'd see nothing but everyone I love die in front of me, the end of civilization, the end of _humanity_, for god's sake? Why me? Why now? Why couldn't I have been born in the '20s or something? Flappers, Prohibition … seemed like good times." I laughed pitifully through my tears, gamely trying to make a joke.

"The '20s were a little lame," said Edward.

_Edward_. He had a name. And he was real. And he was here, with me.

"Why?" I sniffled, wiping my face on my sleeve.

"There was a lot more shit in the streets, for one thing, and then you had the Great Depression, and then once we got out of that, World War II—basically life has always kind of sucked."

"Is that a pun? Like, a vampire pun?" I asked, still wiping my face.

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Because I hate puns."

He laughed weakly, wrapping his arms around his middle. It seemed even that amount of activity had tapped his diminished store of energy.

"What happened to the vampires?" I asked suddenly.

"Forgive me," he said, slumping over on the couch. "I can't sit up any longer."

I stood and helped put his legs up. I sat on the floor by him, so I could still look into his obsidian eyes. "Do you want a blanket?" I asked.

"I don't get cold," he said.

"You need a blanket," I decided, ignoring him. I leapt up to get an old afghan from the wicker basket by the fireplace. I tucked him in, ignoring his weak protestations. He looked better to me, even if it were only an illusion. It made me feel better to see him look as though he were being cared for.

"You should know," he began, "that my family—we weren't like the other vampires. We didn't feed off of humans, only animals. There weren't that many who are like us. When the virus began to infect the humans, the vampires didn't think anything of it, didn't change their hunting or feeding patterns." His breathing was ragged, as if telling the story were as taxing as running a marathon.

"Something happened, and it happened slowly. The vampires who fed off infected humans also got a version of the disease. They grew ill and died. It wasn't communicable from vampire to vampire, only through infected blood."

"But you—you said your family didn't feed from humans."

He looked at me, waiting for me to make the connection.

_After the initial scare, the schools reopened. Students were urged to stay home if they felt the tiniest bit ill, and a lot of parents kept their kids at home anyway, for fear that they'd get sick. Tyler Crowley's mom forced him to go to school no matter what—his brother had dropped out of high school years ago, and she was determined to see at least one of her children graduate. "What's a little sickness?" he'd say, imitating her domineering voice. "No sniffle is going to keep my baby from getting into college. If you stay home, I'll kill you myself."_

_We'd laughed at the time, so desperate for joy as our classes grew smaller and smaller as people became ill, died, or simply moved away, hoping somehow to outrun the illness. "Your mom is pretty fucking scary," we'd agreed, and Tyler nodded his head vigorously. _

_We didn't notice then how red his eyes were, or the sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. We were hanging out during lunch in the biology lab, playing with the guinea pigs, Darwin and Mendel. _

_Tyler was holding Darwin when he sneezed. We all backed away from him, instinctively putting our arms in front of our faces. _

"_Guys, relax," he said. "It's just allergies. These fuckers always make me sneeze."_

"_Okay," we said, but we still kept our distance._

_The next day, Darwin was dead. The day after that, Mendel, who shared Darwin's cage, was dead too. By the end of the week, so was Tyler. Guess his mom wouldn't have to kill him after all for missing school._

"The animals," I murmured. "The virus spread from human to animal. And then … did it go from animal to vampire, just like it had from human to vampire?"

Edward nodded with great effort. "Carlisle—I thought of him as my father—he was trained in medicine, and he didn't see this coming. He thought we were safe because we'd only heard of traditional vampires falling ill. Alice, well, we don't know why her visions didn't warn us—but maybe it was because no one had made a decision that caused the animals to die. She couldn't read into the intent of viruses that had decided to mutate. By the time Carlisle realized what was happening, he and his wife, my second mother, kind, beautiful Esme, were already too ill, and we all know that there's no cure for the virus, no matter who—or what—it strikes."

"What happened to Alice?"

"She was already infected by the time Carlisle had figured it out. She fought so hard—for a while we thought she was the exception, that she'd make it. Jasper—her mate, and my brother—was by her constantly. I almost think his love kept her alive."

"And then?" I said in a hushed voice.

"Jasper was startled by a noise outside. He dropped her hand in surprise. As soon as their skin-to-skin connection was lost, she slipped away. It happened in the blink of an eye, maybe even faster. Jasper was beside himself, naturally. He … built Alice a great funeral pyre, and then he jumped into the flames with her body in his arms. I tried to pull him out, but he begged me to let him go."

My heart broke for these souls I'd never known. "Were there others? In your family, I mean?"

He sighed, and it seemed he was trying to force his eyes to stay open because I'd asked him to. Maybe he wanted to shut them, to stop the memories from coming.

"You don't have to keep your eyes open if you're only doing it for me," I said.

"Thank you." And the obsidian night was veiled again. He swallowed a few times before he continued. "I had another sister—Rosalie—and another brother, Emmett. We were all that were left, along with the coven in Alaska. We knew the animals were no longer safe. I don't know if the other covens like ours had figured it out."

He sighed, and it was my turn to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. "So warm," he said, leaning into my palm. I bit my lip to keep from crying, worrying I'd offend him by showing sorrow for his loved ones I'd never even met.

"We knew if we kept feeding, we would die, because we couldn't tell which animals were well and which ones weren't. The virus could be dormant for days before the illness presented in the animals, especially the bigger ones. I didn't feed. Emmett didn't mind. He liked taking risks. He said he'd never gotten to play Russian roulette as a human, and this was the next best thing. You know, gallows humor."

"It's the only way you can survive," I murmured, wondering how his cheek could feel so solid yet loose and fragile all at once.

"Emmett was lucky the first few times, but then he …" Edward squeezed his eyes tighter. He didn't need to finish that part of the story.

"And the rest of your family?" I asked gently, hoping I wasn't causing him too much pain.

"After Emmett died, Rosalie went looking for an animal she _knew_ was infected. She was his mate, you see. She didn't want to live without him. It didn't take long. And the other coven, they tried not to feed, knowing it would mean their death. But they simply grew too hungry to care anymore. 'What kind of living is this?' they said, leaving for what would be their last hunt, even as I begged them not to go. And then I was the only one left."

"And why were you strong enough to resist? How could you live that long without eating?"

"Because of you, Bella. I had to come back to see you, to say goodbye and to apologize. I'd imagined I'd be apologizing to your grave. I didn't expect to find you alive."

"Can you die of starvation?"

"No. I only wish that I could. It would be easier. I was wondering how I was going to die once I'd said goodbye to you, since there are no more animals, sick or well."

"But I'm alive," I said.

"Yes, I wasn't expecting that."

"So you don't want to die now, do you?"

"I … don't."

"So it doesn't matter," I said. "It doesn't matter that there's no way for you to die, because I'm here, and I'm alive, and I'm not alone anymore." I surprised myself by bursting into tears at the thought. "I'm not alone anymore," I repeated, sobbing.

"Hush, don't cry. Don't cry," he said, trying to reach for me but not being able to free himself of the blanket.

"No, I'm happy for the first time in a long while. I'm happy that I'm not alone." I roughly brushed my tears away and wondered if I could really ask him what I was thinking.

He was studying my face. "You look like you're trying to figure something out."

Shyly, I looked away, unable to make eye contact as I made my request. "It's … it's just been so long since anyone's hugged me. Sometimes I wrap my arms around myself really tightly and try to remember how hard my mom squeezed me, what rhythm she patted my back at when she was proud of me, what rhythm when I was sad. There were different rhythms, see, but I can't remember them all, not for certain anyway." I didn't tell him about the pillow upstairs that I'd dressed in Charlie's clothes, or how I'd drape an empty sleeve over me when the nights were too lonely to bear.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked in a voice so quiet I wasn't sure if I'd only imagined that he'd spoken.

"Why should I be?" I asked defiantly. "The worst has already happened. All my nightmares have come true. So what could happen to me now?"

"Then come here, Bella, for I am too weak to come to you."

I lifted up the blanket and slid next to his thin body on the wide, plush couch. "So warm," he said again, and I drew his arms around me.

"I can see your pulse in your neck," he said.

"I'm sorry—should I cover it up? Is it too hard for you?"

"No—on the contrary, it gives me hope. There's still life here, and of all the people in the world, it's you. You were the only one I prayed was still alive."

"Do vampires pray?" I asked, lulled almost to sleep from the pressure of his arms and his voice in my ear.

"Some of us do," he said. "But our prayers are not usually answered."

We lay there under the afghan, my heart beating loudly enough for the two of us, ticking like a clock counting down our last days.


	8. Willing

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Willing**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 8: Willing**

Having Edward around changed my routine, but it took time. After living the same day over and over, and having the comfort of that routine, I found it hard to break out of the patterns. If I didn't go through all the normal steps of my day, I worried that I'd trigger something horrible to happen, even when I couldn't imagine how life could possibly get worse. I would have thought I'd be happy for the change, but it was terrifying, like being dropped in the middle of outer space and not being able to see the edges of the universe—too much space, too much freedom, too much unknown. I tried to do one different thing a day, slowly easing myself out of my regimented schedule, letting it evolve slowly from single-celled organism to multi-celled. My days moved at glacial pace from living in the ocean to learning how to survive on land, from crawling to walking on fours, until they were finally upright.

He would rest on the couch in the living room all day with his eyes closed. He told me that vampires didn't sleep, but he could have fooled me. I would go on my rounds, visit Charlie's bed in the middle of the night, but now I'd gotten into the habit of sleeping a few hours at night on the couch with Edward, the strange contrast of coldness behind and around me, and my own body heat trapped under the blankets. It was sort of like swimming in the ocean, where every stroke of my arms, kick of my legs, every wave that lifted me off my feet, could bring a different temperature, pushing me into a sudden pocket of warmth, and then one icy cold.

I remembered going to the beach long ago with Renee—we'd go to Florida for winter break some years. She looked amazing in her two-piece, big floppy hat on her head, dark sunglasses—like a Hollywood starlet. The skin on her stomach was flat and toned despite having once been pregnant with me. "I have amazing genes," she'd say if anyone asked. I had a one-piece with a floral pattern and a series of butt ruffles, a look that works when you're nine years old.

I'd run from our spot on the sand and jump into the foamy waves, shrieking from the cold and the startling snaking of seaweed around my stocky legs. I'd paddle out to where I could still reach the bottom unless a big wave came by, floating up and away right before the wave crashed behind me. From time to time I'd look back to her, a tiny, bright dot on a sandy canvas. She'd wave back to me from her blanket, and if I squinted, I could see her rubbing suntan oil on her skin, the stuff that made her smell like a fruit smoothie.

I'd learned in science class about SPF, and I told her I didn't think that tanning oil was good enough to protect her skin. She'd ruffle my hair and say, "Bella, sweets, it's all about calculated risks. Plus I'm wearing a hat. My face is going to be fine." I worried about her so much, waking up in the middle of the night and fretting she'd get skin cancer and leave me motherless. I almost laughed now to think of how insignificant my worries were then, how tiny in the grand scheme of what could, and did, actually go wrong. Now I knew she'd been right all along—what good would it have done to cover up head to toe, to slather herself with SPF 100, if the virus was going to take her in a few years anyway? At least she got to stretch out in the sun and live the way she wanted to, not dictated by fear like me. I wished I could have been more like her when I'd had the chance.

_Live the way you want to_.

How would I live now, live it to the fullest given the parameters in which I was trapped? I sat on Charlie's recliner and watched Edward resting. He was weaker every day, but he could not die. How horrible. I'd read to him, even though I didn't know if he could hear me. "Are you listening?" I'd ask sometimes.

"I like to hear your voice," he'd say, moving his lips so slightly that I wasn't sure if I'd imagined that he'd responded at all.

Every morning I read him the paper, the last paper, the same as I always began my day—I incorporated him into my routines. I'd eat breakfast in the living room with him, which was different, and I felt guilty for eating when he couldn't. But then I'd remind myself that he'd asked me not to leave him, even if he couldn't see me.

"I can hear your heart beat, even when my eyes are closed," he'd say. "As long as your heart beats, I don't remember anything else."

I'd go outside and walk, looking for more provisions, looking at the sky and hoping for rain. I remembered a time when I hated how wet and dreary Forks was, but now I would welcome the frequent showers. The rest of my—our—days, I would read to Edward as he rested, still, exhausted, starving.

We were finishing up _The Grapes of Wrath_, maybe not the cheeriest book to read under our circumstances, but Edward said he'd never read any Steinbeck. I'd rather have read _East of Eden_, but all the cheery family moments of the Hamiltons made me miss Charlie too much. Somehow it was easier to handle the steady stream of misery of _The Grapes of Wrath_. The overwhelming despair of the Joads was almost a comfort. I felt less alone. I began reading the last scene, with Rose of Sharon baring her breast and feeding the starving man, blushing a little as I read to Edward.

"Strange ending," he said as I closed the book.

"But kind of beautiful, right?" I said, even though when I'd first read it for English class, I'd been pretty weirded out by it. I must have been uncomfortable with the idea of breastfeeding in general—I mean, jeez, I'd had trouble drinking milk if I thought about it too much—but then breastfeeding an adult—a total stranger—that added a whole new level of ick. Now though, the whole scene read differently. I saw now that she gave the only thing she had, even after losing her baby. She didn't let tragedy and sorrow and poverty and starvation overcome her and make her ignore someone in need.

And in that moment, I knew what I had to do.

"I'm going out," I said, vaguely waving my hand.

"Okay," he said in a raspy voice. "Be safe."

I laughed. "What else is out there? There's nothing."

I retied the laces on my sneakers tightly and ran the mile and a half to the old health clinic. I pulled my t-shirt over my nose and mouth, trying not to breathe too deeply. So many had died here, the doctors coming to work every day even when they were struck ill, because someone had to tend to the dying. What could they do but make people comfortable, administering as much morphine or Dilaudid as remained in their dwindling supplies? It was amazing; some of the doctors had died on their feet, leaning against the wall just so. These bodies were old, though, and not too pungent—by the end, no one could even make it to the hospitals. I only hoped they still had supplies.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for, my memory from the school blood drive hazy. I'd needed Charlie to sign the consent form since I wasn't seventeen yet. I remembered getting my finger pricked to check for iron—that part had hurt the worst of all. And they asked me so many embarrassing questions about what kind of sex I may or may not have had. I knew my blood was clean, and anemia wasn't an issue when I was the only one left alive. We could skip the formalities. _We, what we?_ I wondered. _It's only me_.

Iodine. I'd need iodine, and bandages, and the right kind of needle, and one of those donation bags. Where would I find any of that? I wandered through the dark halls until I found a supply closet. The door had been kicked down when the rioting and looting began, and people had already taken all the painkillers. But no one needed donation bags to get a fix. And iodine, well, what good would that do anyone? I found bottles and bottles of it. I grabbed some bandages, iodine, a handful of cotton balls, packages of gauze, and even found one of those rubber strips they used to tie your arm up.

It was too dark inside the old building and far too dreary for me to attempt this crazy thing in there. I walked outside, carefully stepping around the broken glass of the entrance doors, and sat on a bench by the circular driveway leading up to emergency care. The sun was out, pale and weak, but the light was still there. I had no idea what I was doing, or if I would be brave enough. How would I even find a vein?

I swabbed the inside of my arm, surprised at how cold the iodine felt on my skin. I waited for the stuff to dry, watching it tint my inner arm a strange orangey brown. I tied the rubber strip above my elbow as tightly as I could.

I could feel my pulse straining against the tie, beating time like a metronome, like a watch. Funny, that. Watches worked only while they ticked, same as people. No more ticking, no more life. It was as if my pulse were repeating, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" Despite everything that had happened to the world, my heart refused to stop beating, the stubborn little thing.

I felt around the crook of my elbow, trying to feel where the beating was the strongest. I freed the sterile needle from its crinkly packaging, scared a little by how thick it was. I gulped and shook my head, trying to dispel my nerves. _God, Charlie, whoever's out there_, I prayed, _guide my hand. Help me do this right. I don't care how much it hurts_.

I tapped the inside of my arm a few times, thinking that if drug addicts could do this, I didn't need to be any sort of medical professional. And then I closed my eyes and jabbed, hoping I wouldn't screw it up.

I didn't cry out even as the needle pinched and burned, but I waited a few breaths until the throbbing calmed down before opening my eyes. The tubing from the needle was filling with deep crimson, thick as tempera paint. It was amazing to see, and I opened and closed my fist, recalling the instructions the friendly nurse had given me in the school gym. I touched the tubing with my free hand, amazed at how warm my blood was flowing through, the same temperature as me. The bag began, slowly, to fill, and I thought of Rose of Sharon and the starving man. "_She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously_."

I cradled the bag in my lap as it filled, thinking of Edward lying under blankets on the couch, and I smiled a little too. I cupped the bag in my free hand, enjoying the heft of the bag in my palm. Surely this would help him.

I didn't know if I had a pint yet, but I got a piece of gauze out and put it on top of the needle as I slid it out. I reclined slowly on the concrete bench, holding the gauze tightly against my arm, trying to stop the blood. I raised my arm high into the air above me as if I knew the answer to the question the sun seemed to be asking me as it shone weakly, not warming my face.


	9. Restraint

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Restraint**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 9: Restraint**

I waited a while before sitting up. I counted nine hundred Mississippis—fifteen minutes sounded about right for resting after losing a pint of blood, given healthy, normal blood pressure. I tried to remember the last time my blood pressure had been checked. When was my last physical? I never got sick—Renee had even tried time and time again to expose me to chicken pox, but my immune system was stubborn and refused to let that virus replicate. I never missed school because of illness, and there was a drawer in the kitchen of my mom's house (_if it's even still standing_, I thought to myself, wondering what Phoenix looked like these days—if there was even a patch of dirt left that could be called _Phoenix_) filled with my school attendance awards. I remembered a time when I _wanted_ to get sick, to get to stay home and be fed Jell-o and chicken soup and ginger ale and saltines, to stay in pajamas all day and watch daytime game shows and soaps and those boring small claims court programs. But I never got sick. The greatest danger to my health was my own clumsiness.

As I held the gauze to my arm, I closed my eyes and tried to pretend the stone bench was the padded table where I'd donated blood a few years ago. I breathed deeply, trying to imagine the courtyard outside the heath center was the old Forks High gymnasium, forcing myself to smell the memory of socks, sweat, and hormones instead of the stagnant air tinged with death, decay, and a hint of sulfur. I thought of the blood drive, how scared I'd been, and yet so proud that those few moments of discomfort could save the lives of three people I'd never get to meet. I remembered looking around the gym at the other kids in my class with tubing taped to their arms, the coolers from the Red Cross. I remembered the taste of watered-down grape juice and Lorna Doone shortbread cookies they'd had at the recovery table, how strange the juice tasted after the grainy sweetness of the shortbread. Juice and cookies never went together. Milk and cookies made more sense, but they didn't give you milk after you gave blood. I never thought I'd miss milk, but now I sorely wished we'd had milk with our cookies at the recovery table, as if it would somehow make a difference to have that taste memory instead of the juice and cookies clashing on my tongue.

I folded a new piece of gauze into fourths and taped it to the crook of my elbow with a big band-aid and pushed myself up to sitting. I still had the bag of blood in my hand. When I'd donated blood at the school blood drive, I remembered how strangely sad I'd been when they'd whisked my donation bag away. I'd laughed at myself for being so … well, _sentimental_ didn't seem like the right word for it, but it was something in that family. I'd been sad that a part of me was being taken away, and I couldn't say goodbye. I didn't know why I wanted to feel the heft of the bag in my arms, feel how warm it was, filled with the blood that had been inside me moments before, carrying my oxygen, fighting off foreign bodies, helping me _live_. I just wanted to touch the bag once, poke into its side with my finger. _It's just blood, Bella_, I remembered telling myself. _It's not like you just gave up a baby or something_. But I'd been sad all the same, even knowing that my gift would save lives.

Not this time, though. I cradled the bag in my arms as if it were a tiny, premature baby. "Hi there," I said to the bag. "Would you like to come home with me? You would?" I said, answering for the bag. "All right, come here," I said, holding the bag against my shoulder as if to burp the tiny, warm baby. "Baby's warm and filled with such healthy blood," I cooed as I walked. I was aware that I sounded crazy, but who was there to hear me?

The bag of blood cooled slowly, but I still felt let down as it slowly reached room temperature as I neared the house. I idly tossed the bag from hand to hand, which probably was speeding the cooling of the blood. Would Edward still drink it if it weren't the right temperature? Would it be like eating cold leftovers? I used to enjoy cold leftovers, back in the day when it seemed decadent to eat cold pasta and chicken for breakfast. Now, though, all meals were cold leftovers. I hated the feel of cold corned beef hash, the solidified fat melting slowly in my mouth, feeling oddly gritty before dissolving on my tongue. What I wouldn't give for a working microwave. Why hadn't anyone invented a windup microwave, like my flashlight and radio?

Lost in these thoughts, I stopped watching where I was going and tripped over my untied shoelaces. I went tumbling, and the bag of blood flew out of my hands in slow motion. "No!" I shouted after it, and I tried to propel myself farther as I tripped, stretching my body forward another few inches to try to break the bag's fall with any part of my body. I fell face first into the dirt, but my outstretched arms miraculously caught the bag. My chin got scraped pretty badly, but I didn't think it was bleeding very much. I had a first aid kit in the house; I could clean myself up there later. My left wrist ached tremendously, and it hurt to rotate. _Dumb, dumb, dumb_, I told myself. The bag was probably strong enough to survive a five-foot drop. But I couldn't take the chance. I could just see the bag bursting, leaving a large red stain in the road. I couldn't bear the thought. If the bag broke, I wouldn't be able to take out that much blood again for two months—that is, if I wanted to be safe about this. I had to survive if he were to survive.

Wincing with pain, I got up slowly and walked the rest of the way back to the house. I held the bag by its top in my right hand, my left arm hanging limply by my side. I tapped my chin with a finger. The blood had already clotted. It was more like a rug burn than anything else. Just a quick alcohol wipe would take care of it when I got home.

I'd left the door open, and I hurried inside, not taking the time to take off my shoes. "Edward?" I called. I didn't know why I called; he never moved from his spot on the sofa. I supposed I didn't want to be rude and surprise him, although I was also pretty sure he could hear my shuffling steps from quite a distance away, especially if his hearing were good enough to hear my heart beat when we sat in the same room.

"You're back," he said. "You were gone a long time."

"Was I?"

"You've cut yourself," he said, sniffing at the air.

"I'm fine," I shrugged. "Clumsy."

I wasn't quite sure what to do next, so I unceremoniously dumped the donation bag onto his lap.

"What's that?" he asked, too weak to open his eyes.

"It's for you," I said, patting his shoulder as I sank to my knees on the floor by the couch.

His hand came out from under the blanket and lightly touched the top of the bag. "It's still warm," he said.

"Does it feel warm to you? It cooled down a lot."

He still hadn't opened his eyes.

"Well?" I asked.

"What is it?" he said, puzzled, running his hands on the plastic.

"It's blood," I said. "You need to drink it. You're too weak to do anything."

His brow furrowed. "Where … did you get this?"

"From my arm," I said as casually as I could.

"You did what?" I had thought he would have been happy to get to eat, but I could tell even through his hoarse whisper that he was furious.

"I took the blood myself. I'm clean. You can drink it."

He tried to toss the bag away, to push it onto the floor, but he didn't have the strength. "I won't. I won't drink your blood."

"You already did, remember? It's clean. You didn't die. I won't make you sick."

"That's not it, Bella," he said, trying to push himself up to sitting. I grasped his hands and helped up. Wearily he leaned against the arm of the sofa as he opened his eyes, hissing against the brightness. He was like a newborn animal seeing the world for the first time.

"What is it, then?"

"I never … we didn't feed from people," he said. "I don't know what will happen if I drink this. I don't know what that will make me."

"I know it'll make you strong."

"I don't want to be a monster," he said.

"How are you a monster? This blood is given freely, willingly, and…" I blushed, wondering if I should say the next part, "with love." I looked at my feet until he spoke again.

"I won't," he said, shaking his head slightly. I couldn't imagine how much strength it took him just to move that much.

"Goddammit, Edward, you will." I brought the bag up to his nose. "Can't you smell that? Can't you smell the blood? It will revive you."

He pulled away as much as he could. "Do not tempt me, Bella. I will not drink your blood. I've done so many bad things in my life; I could not bear it if I took from you."

"But I've taken it from myself already," I said, growing angrier with his strange morality.

"Vampires … can't die from starvation," he said firmly.

I brought the bag closer with my good hand, hoping to awaken some survival instinct in him, but he kept pulling away, despite being just taut skin on iron bone. My left wrist still ached, but I still pulled my left hand back and struck him on the face as hard as I could. "Drink it. You _have_ to. I know you won't die from starvation, but _look_ at you! How can I eat when you can't? How can I breathe and let this blood, your _food_, flow through my veins when you are starving?"

I hit him again and again, and he made no move to stop me. I just wanted him to grow so furious that he'd just tear into the bag, into me, whatever. I just wanted him to eat _something_. My wrist was throbbing now, most likely sprained from my fall, and certainly bruised from hitting his unbreakable face.

Irritated, I rubbed my chin roughly with my knuckles. A bit of grit from the road was stuck under the skin, and I began picking at the pieces, reopening my wound. I became compulsive about it, scratching and digging and trying to get every grain out, until even I could smell the iron of my blood in the air. I heard something like a growl come from Edward, and his eyes were finally open, black as night. He looked like an animal. "Edward?" I asked, but it seemed as though he could no longer hear me.

If he hadn't been so exhausted, I'm sure he would have killed me right there, but his lunge at me was slow enough for me to dodge. Now was the time. I shoved the bag in his face, and he tore into it with his teeth, sucking and gulping and snarling. I backed away, my task complete, and watched with fascination as life seemed to flow from his face down his neck and into the rest of his body. He had no idea I was in the room—for him the entire world now consisted only of him and the bag in his hands.

When the bag was empty, he tore it apart with his teeth, greedily seeking more. The plastic was soon in shreds, the tiny remaining drops of blood staining the dusty rug. He closed his eyes and sniffed at the air, and then his head snapped toward me. My chin was still oozing a little, and I covered it with my good hand, hoping to mask the smell.

A tiny smile danced at the corners of his mouth, and with a smooth, cruel voice I didn't recognize, he said, "Bella, you really shouldn't have done that."

He rose slowly to his feet, but before I could celebrate how my blood had brought him strength, he said just one word:

"_Run_."


	10. Slip

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Slip**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 10: Slip**

In gym class, I was always last pick. It didn't bother me; I'd long ago accepted that I was no good on my feet. I was exceptionally good at falling, at tripping, at spraining. I'd often used the phrase "as if my life depended upon it," but I'd never really _thought_ about it.

Right now, I was thinking about it pretty hard, about as hard as my heart was beating against my ribs. I took a moment to look down at my feet, thankful I hadn't unlaced my sneakers when I walked in the house. Without shoes, I was as good as dead. If I were being honest with myself, I was probably as good as dead with shoes or without. For a second, I considered doing nothing, of just letting the monster take me. Would it be so bad? Would it be worse than what I had? Wouldn't eternal sleep be … a relief?

_No, Bella_, I could imagine Charlie saying to me. _Fight. Always fight. Go!_

It felt as though Charlie somehow propelled me, as if I'd been loaded into a slingshot. I ran, limbs flying, looking like an idiot. I scrambled through the dark hallway and through the kitchen, hurtling out the back door of the house. I could hear him behind me, swearing. If he hadn't been so weak to begin with, I would be dead by now, crushed under his weight, torn apart by his hands and teeth. I could picture myself under him, my lifeless eyes glassy, unseeing. I'd seen enough dead bodies to know exactly what I'd look like.

Even considering his weakened condition, it would take a miracle to outrun him.

I didn't know where to run, or if there were anywhere I could hide. He would find me. Did I regret giving him my blood? Did I regret it, even if he ended up killing me? As my lungs burned from exertion, I realized I didn't regret one thing. He had been hungry, and I had had food. I hadn't talked to the clouds as much since he'd come here. If I'd been given the offer to trade my solitary life for a few moments of tenderness, of companionship, I would have made the same decision. No regrets.

And still, I ran. I heard metal twisting behind me, and I knew he'd taken the door off its hinges. He was like a wild animal, a rabid dog. There was no reasoning with him. He had been reduced to his most basic nature, and I couldn't blame him. In the last few months before Forks had become a town with only one citizen, I'd seen the worst of humanity, people doing horrible things to each other because they knew they had nothing left to lose. That was more horrible to me, because they'd had a choice. They'd willingly decided that since everyone was dying, they might as well act on their basest, most taboo desires. That was how they chose to spend their last moments on the earth.

Edward was just trying to survive. I couldn't blame him for that.

There was a stitch in my side, and my wrist started to hurt more. I turned around to see where Edward was. He would be upon me in a few more strides. I felt a burst of energy as I heard Charlie in my head telling me to fight, never to surrender. I ran, still looking over my shoulder.

I should have known by now that I was no good at multitasking when it came to matters of coordination. I hit a patch of loose pebbles in the street, and my feet were swept from under me. I tried to break my fall with my bad arm, yelping in pain when I felt something snap. I had been running so fast that my momentum propelled me along the asphalt, taking a layer of skin with it as I skid to a stop.

Would Charlie be proud of me? Would he think I'd fought hard enough?

It would be over soon anyway. Just a few moments now. I could just close my eyes and wait. _Sleep now; it's over_. I'd join the others, all the others. I hoped Charlie would be there, right on the other side, waiting for me.

Edward was on top of me now, just as I'd imagined seconds before. He pinned me down by my shoulders. If I had to die, I was glad, at least, that I would die from contact with another being. I would not be consumed from the inside out by a rapidly replicating virus: nameless, cruel, unfeeling.

Given the events of the last few months, it was a blessing, really.

I could feel the blood slick on my arm, and my wrist throbbed as my heart continued to beat. _His hands will leave bruises_, I thought, and it struck me how strange it was that these would be my last thoughts. _As if bruises would matter, after_.

I'd closed my eyes, thinking it would be easier, or the right thing to do. But I found in this last moment that I didn't want to go like this, to slip into forever in the dark behind the veils of my eyelids. I would open my eyes. I would say goodbye to the sun. I let my eyes open, hungrily taking in everything around me, even the face of my killer.

The pale sun shone behind him, making a halo around his head, my angel of death. He was beautiful even as he acted on pure animal instinct, perhaps even more beautiful. I looked deeply into his eyes, dark, tinged with red. As far as last sights went, this one wasn't bad.

I tried to relax as I waited for the end.

He moved as if to strike, and I braced myself, wondering if it would hurt, or if I'd be gone before I felt the pain. I wasn't afraid; I was calm and curious, and I'd never felt more alive.

I was lucky. This wasn't how Charlie had gone, babbling and delirious and in agony.

I gazed at him and waited.

He stared at me, locking eyes with mine. I imagined I could feel his teeth at my throat, feel the life draining out of me the way I'd watched my blood flow through the tubing into the donation bag.

He stared at me with those eyes like the starless night, and I did not look away. I took him in, knowing his face would be the last thing I'd see. My last memory.

"I'm glad it's you," I said.

He gripped my shoulders more tightly, and I braced myself for the end. I waited for the teeth, the burning, the slow, final slipping into sleep.

I felt his body shake, convulsing. Had my blood been infected after all? I didn't know how quickly the virus killed his kind.

I studied his face, twisted in agony. His lips moved so quickly I couldn't tell if he were speaking at all. If I didn't focus on the words, on the rapidly moving lips, meaning slowly emerged like a raised image in a stereogram. "No," he said over and over. "You can fight this." I was reminded of the story he'd told me about his family, how his sister had held on as long as her love had held her hand. But his body shook, his fingers piercing through the thin fabric of my shirt, easily slipping inside the smooth flesh underneath as if my skin were as fragile as eggshell, as porous as if it were made of vapor.

"You can," I said, his fingers feeling like ice inside my flesh. There was pain, but it was so strange, so different, that I barely even winced. "You're strong enough to fight the disease. I'm sorry. I thought my blood was clean."

"The disease?" He threw his head back and laughed cruelly. "Your blood _is_ clean, foolish one."

"Then what are you fighting?" I asked, barely able to draw breath with his weight on me.

He convulsed again, looking ill. "I'm _trying_ not to kill you, Bella."

"Oh," I said, as I looked into the endless dark of his eyes. "Well, I forgive you if you can't."

As if he'd been burned, he pushed himself off of me and scrambled away, looking like a crab scuttling on the bottom of the ocean. He hunched over in a ball and clutched at his hair. "Go away, Bella," he said, not looking up. "Run far from me. I'm not safe. I won't follow you. I'm strong enough for that, but not enough not to kill you if you don't get away from me now."

I stood up slowly, shakily, looking at him, wondering if my legs still worked.

"Please, just go," he said, his head hung down, muffled into his shirt, "before I lose control. I don't know how long I can be lucid, how long I can hold the demon back."

"I don't care," I said, and I was surprised to discover that I didn't. My legs remained rooted to the ground.

He scratched at the earth frantically, finally finding a handful of pebbles and throwing them at me. "Go!" he yelled as a pebble glanced off my cheek.

"I won't," I said, but he continued to pelt me with rocks.

"Go!" he roared with such ferocity that I was finally afraid.

I turned and ran, not looking back. I didn't hear his footsteps behind me, only rocks thudding by my feet, feeling an occasional stinging pain when a pebble hit my bare skin.

I ran until my legs gave out, and I realized I hadn't counted my steps from the house. I knew where I was, but not having a number in my head made me feel hopelessly lost.

I stopped running and turned, slowly, not sure of what I might see.

There was nothing but a lone silhouette in the distance, curled tightly unto itself, as if he hoped that by crushing himself in his own arms, he might disappear altogether.

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A/N: Thank you to feathers_mmmm for reccing me in the last chapter of Wallbanger! Thank you to Mrs. TheKing for choosing this story for the first Twitter #readalong!**

**P.S. I fell asleep a few times while I wrote this, and therefore entered an odd, dream-like state. It seemed to make sense at the time, but I now can remember nothing. If this chapter doesn't make any sense, blame the Benadryl and sleep-typing. **


	11. Patience

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Patience**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 11: Patience**

I didn't know where to run. I had half a mind to double back and return to the house, but I wondered if Edward would follow me there, despite his promises not to. My shoulders throbbed from where his fingers had pierced me, and I could see blood beginning to soak through my shirt—not too much, but enough to remind me how much I'd ruined everything. I was berating myself, wondering if I'd really screwed everything up with the only company—okay, I'd say it: _friend_—I'd had in months. But what choice had I had? How long would he have lasted on our couch? He was walking now, wasn't he? I argued back and forth with myself in my head.

Where would I go now? I'd been crying so hard that all I could see through my tears as I ran were blurry streaks of brown and green and palest blue. Since I'd stopped counting steps, I didn't know where I'd end up. When I was calm enough to get my bearings, I saw I was near the high school. All the windows were broken, giving the building the appearance of an old man who had lost most of his teeth.

"_Come on, Bella. Don't be lame." Eric was putting a rock in my hand. "Who's going to do anything to us now?"_

"_I can't," I said. "I don't care if we won't get caught. What's the point in destroying the school?"_

_Forks High had been shut down for about a month now, and the town was slowly deteriorating. Most people who weren't sick stayed in their homes, their doors bolted, afraid of the roving gangs of kids out for a thrill kill. It was like living in a _Clockwork Orange_ world. The truth was, Charlie didn't even want me out of the house, but I had begun to feel as though I were suffocating in the air in our small home. He still had to go to work and patrol, but he'd given me one of his guns and told me how to use it. "You can't trust anyone, Bella," he'd said when I'd initially refused the firearm. _

_I hadn't had to use it—so far. Maybe our house didn't stand out, or maybe Charlie's reputation was enough to keep the thrill-seekers away. Charlie could be downright scary when he wanted to be, the typical quiet, patient, measured guy: unflappable until pushed just a bit too hard. When he snapped, he would never even raise his voice, but a few words murmured in That Tone, and no one dared to fuck with him._

_He trusted me not to do anything stupid, so he didn't lock me into the house or anything. It was just understood that I was to stay home, gun at the ready. When Eric knocked on my door, I broke out in a cold sweat, looking at the gun on my desk, wondering if I could possibly use it, if I could possibly take someone's life, even in self-defense. I looked through the peephole and relaxed when I saw it was just Yorkie. "What do you want?" I yelled at him through the door._

"_C'mon, Bella, come out with me and the guys."_

_I thought of Charlie, could imagine his disapproving stare, but I said yes anyway. I hadn't talked to anyone besides Charlie in so long. We all wore facemasks now out in public, as if it would help. It reminded me of all the silly TSA regulations toward the end, about liquids and gels and removing your shoes. These little rituals helped us feel safer, as if putting one's shoes through the x-ray could prevent a terrorist attack. With the right person and training, any innocuous object could become a deadly weapon. And so, before I did the incredibly stupid thing of leaving my house, I put on a little paper mask, just because it made me feel less afraid. Even though deep down, we all knew they wouldn't save anyone._

_I slipped on my jacket and shoes and opened the door to see Eric and a few of his friends, barely recognizable with their face masks. "Where're we going?" I asked, shoving my hands in deep into the pockets of my jeans._

"_Just follow us, young grasshopper," he said, and I'd seen so much horror and destruction in the last few months that I had almost no sense of self-preservation left. Almost. Charlie's gun was tucked into my waistband, the cold metal a constant reminder that I did, on some level, still want to stay alive._

_And so we'd ended up by our old high school, where we ought to have been that moment had the world remained remotely normal. I wondered what class I would have had right then. I'd already begun to have trouble keeping track of the days of the week. Eric and his friends took no time before they were chucking rocks at the school, laughing and slapping each other the back if they broke a pane in one of the second or third floor windows._

"_Don't you want to try it?" Eric asked. I just shook my head and dropped the rock he'd pressed into my hand a moment earlier._

"_Suit yourself," he shrugged, and I slipped away before they could even notice I was gone._

I stood at the main entrance of the school, remembering how many times I'd trudged up and down these steps, how many days I'd dreaded going through the doors. Some mornings I'd wanted to lie in bed all day, sleeping, reading, watching the sun slowly meander across the floorboards of my room as the hours passed. But now, now I would give anything to be back inside, sitting in a cracked wooden seat with a wobbly writing surface clamped to its frame, years of ballpoint graffiti smudged on the surface. I'd give anything to be bored out of my mind and half-asleep and itching for the bell to ring. Boredom was a luxury. If you were bored, it meant you weren't afraid, that all your needs were met but being entertained. I missed the boredom, the blissful cluelessness of not knowing what was to come.

The last surviving vandals had long since busted open the doors, so it was easy enough to step inside. The school didn't smell of decay—it had been shut a while before the final waves of the illness wiped out our town.

It was dark and cool inside, and I had to step carefully because of the shattered glass that no one had bothered to clean—perhaps there had been nobody left to clean, after the damage had been done. I wandered through the hallways, letting my hand trail along the pebbly surface of the painted cinderblock walls, stopping when I reached the infirmary. There were still cots here, even rolls of that crinkly paper they'd put on top for hygienic purposes. I pulled a new sheet of paper across the nearest cot and curled up on top, wondering who was the last body to lie here. I remembered resting here so many times, pretending to have a headache when I just wanted to sleep. Sometimes I'd injured myself in gym or bio lab, and I'd wait here until Charlie could pick me up to take me to the doctor. I never got the cold or flu or stomach bugs, but I sure was good at dislocating things and bleeding. It all evened out, I guessed.

I found an unused Ace bandage in a drawer of the school nurse's desk, and I wrapped up my bad wrist, which had swollen since my fall. It didn't hurt too much. I would probably need to make a sling at some point, but I was too cold to attempt to tear my shirt apart now.

I watched the sun go down until darkness fell completely. With no electricity and no stars in the sky, you may as well have had your eyes closed. I wouldn't go anywhere here now, not until sunrise, not familiar enough with the floorplan to be able to wander confidently in the dark the way I could at home. It was so quiet that I jumped when my stomach growled. When was the last I had eaten? Definitely before I'd gone to the health clinic. I'd only imagined the juice and cookies after filling the donation bag with blood. I'd been rationing my food for a while, and I certainly didn't need as much as I did before in order to get through the day, but the loss of blood, the running, and the hours without eating … I simply couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.

I wondered where Edward was, and if he had grown weak again already. I wondered when I'd next see his eyes, and who would be staring back at me if we ever found each other again. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried, in vain, to sleep.

_The boys hadn't noticed I'd left them, and I thought how silly I was for having thought going out with them was a good idea. I was just lucky nothing bad had happened to me while I was out there. I started to wander back home, hoping to beat Charlie there. I didn't want him to know I'd disobeyed him. There was a shift in the wind, and my heart started to race. I thought about how small animals seemed to know when a catastrophic event was coming. Could they smell it, or was it just a vibration running through the ground and up and into their bodies? All I knew was that I was being followed, and that I was not safe. My hand slipped around the gun I'd tucked into my waistband, colder than the steel which had by now warmed to my body temperature. _

_I started to walk faster, my face in full bitchface mode. Charlie had told me before a school trip to Seattle that whenever I walked around at night, even with a group of friends, I should always put my bitchface on. "Look tough, Bella. Walk with purpose. Look as though you would go apeshit if anyone so much as looked at you the wrong way." He'd made me practice my bitchface for him, and we'd both laughed so hard as he'd tried to coach me, demonstrating his best mustachioed bitchface for me. I knew what he was saying was dead serious, but honestly, getting guidance from Charlie on the finer points of bitchery and its uses in self-defense could lead only to the both of us lying on the floor, clutching our bellies and wheezing from laughter. _

_I had no urge to laugh now, as my heart beat faster and faster, as I heard the rustling behind me come closer. There was the sickening sound of a thick metal chain being dragged along the asphalt, and I knew that whoever was behind me had, at the very least, crude weapons._

"_Stop following me," I said, not turning around._

_Cruel laughter. "Who put you in charge, little girl?"_

_I turned slowly, the gun in my sweaty hands nearly slipping out of my grasp. They were two burnouts from school—they'd graduated long before I'd ever stepped foot in Forks High, but they were the kind who always hung around the school, hoping for easy girls looking for older guys with cars and the power to buy beer. The guy who'd spoken, the bigger of the two, wore his letterman jacket, even though he clearly had outgrown his lean high school physique soon after graduation. Neither wore face masks. I knew the type immediately—the danger seekers, the ones who figured life was over anyway, so they might as well be as bad as they could, since they didn't think any of us would live long enough to have to answer for their actions._

"_We won't hurt you," he said with an oily smile. "We just want to talk."_

"_I'm listening," I said, muffled behind the paper mask. He hadn't seen the gun yet. He was focused on my wide eyes, on the waves of fear rolling off of me. I straightened my spine and tried to look him in the face. "What do you want?"_

"_I want to know how loudly you can scream," he said, lunging toward me._

_Before I could consider the morality of what I was about to do, I'd already squeezed the trigger, and he had crumpled to the ground. I'd shot him somewhere in the abdomen._

"_Jesus, help me," he moaned, but his friend just stared at him, smirking. His friend looked at me, at the barrel of the gun, and shrugged, walking away._

"_Where are you going, Artie?" he cried. "You can't leave me here!"_

"_Whatever, dude," Artie said, shuffling off and whistling, swinging his chain in big, heavy circles._

_I backed away from the brute as he clutched his stomach, blood blossoming out shockingly from the wound. I was surprised I'd managed to hit him at all. I didn't wait to find out if the shot had been fatal. I just ran all the way back home, trying to pretend the screaming I heard was just some wild animal. Once I was safely inside again, I put the gun back on my desk, changed clothes, and washed my face._

_When Charlie came home a few hours later, he said, "Anything new?"_

"_Nothing's ever new anymore," I said, sighing and walking up to him to peck his cheek._

Every time I shifted my weight, the crinkly paper brought me to full alertness. I was too hungry and worked up to sleep, and I was cold, lying here on the paper-covered cot without blankets. I missed the smell of my house.

The puncture wounds on my shoulders had already stopped bleeding, and I gingerly got to my feet. I started talking to myself to hear my voice bounce off the walls, to get a sense of how close I was to walking into things. With my good hand, I found the doorway, and I followed the edge of the wall back out the main doors, placing each footstep carefully, trying to kick away any glass shards. Once I got out the main doors of the school, I'd be able to find my way home without looking.

How many steps from the front entrance of the school back to the house? It was well into the thousands, and I counted, wishing I could hear any sound besides my breathing and the shuffling of my sneakers on dusty earth. There used to be the hooting of owls, the rumble of motorbikes, the clicking and singing of insects. Toward the end there was nothing but screaming, gunshots, things shattering. I didn't miss those days. I whistled low, trying to mimic an owl, and I made clucking sounds with my tongue, trying my best to sound like an innocuous bug. And in my head, I was always counting, counting, counting backwards down to zero, back to my house.

The front door was open as it always was, and I crept to the living room, hoping that maybe Edward would have come back here, that he'd be on the couch, that today hadn't happened, and I could slip under the afghan and lie next to his cool body. But the sofa was flat, unoccupied. I nodded, understanding what it all meant, that I was once again alone.

My stomach's growling reminded me why I'd had to come home in the first place, and I went to the kitchen, picking a can at random. I didn't normally eat in the dark. I knew from the heft of the can that it wasn't soup, and the lack of pop top told me it wasn't anything from the Chef Boyardee family. I fumbled for the can opener, cranking the lid off clumsily. I eased my finger under the lid to bend it back, careful not to cut myself on the jagged edge of the metal. Boston baked beans. I found a spoon and shoveled the cold beans greedily into my mouth. I used to find Boston baked beans repugnant, disturbingly sweet—I mean, for god's sake, they were _beans_, not candy. But I didn't care now, just wanting the pinching and churning in my stomach to stop.

When the can was empty, I left it on the counter with the spoon still inside. I didn't want to deal with cleanup in the dark. I was suddenly exhausted.

I took my shoes off and tiptoed up the stairs, pushing open Charlie's door and crawling under his blanket as if I'd had a bad dream. "I messed up, Daddy," I whispered to the pillow dressed in Charlie's comforting plaid. I propped my bad arm on the pillow and tried, again, to sleep.

After weeks of sleeping with Edward by my side, Charlie's bed seemed even emptier than before. "I'll find you again," I promised, "no matter how long it takes." Tomorrow, I would look. I would wander and try to bring him out.

"I'll find you," I said, setting my jaw, "even if I have to search forever." I sat with my eyes open, staring up at the dark, which lay like a thick mantle between me and the ceiling.

"I'll find you," I said, swallowing hard, "even if you end up killing me."

Now that I'd experienced being with another sentient creature again, I knew I couldn't survive long completely alone. It had been hard enough to adjust the first time. If I had to get used to being alone again, and this time forever, I would die. I would rather he killed me.

And if he didn't come back, there was some comfort in knowing Charlie's gun still had at least one bullet left in it.

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A/N: Hello, new readers! So many have said this story reminds them of **_**The Stand**_**. I've never actually read this book, but I promise to after this story is complete.**


	12. Worry

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Worry**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 12: Worry**

The throbbing in my arm woke me before the sunlight. I lay in the big, empty bed while I waited for the sun to rise. I counted my heartbeats as the darkness outside slowly crept away, nudged away by the light. The world was still revolving, turning its face toward the sun. When there was light enough in Charlie's room, I unwrapped the Ace bandage to check on the swelling. My wrist had turned many shades of purple and pale green, and I would have thought it quite pretty if it hadn't been my own skin. The swelling wasn't so bad. My body was probably so used to being injured that it healed extra quickly. I went to the bathroom to examine yesterday's damage in the tiny mirror on the medicine cabinet. I pulled the first aid kit from under the sink, finding an alcohol wipe. I dabbed at my chin and pulled my shirt collar away from my neck, exposing first one shoulder, then the other. The puncture wounds from Edward's fingers had already scabbed over, and I brushed my hands lightly over them, almost enjoying the soreness. The pain was proof I hadn't imagined it all. He had been here. But what little joy I received at the confirmation of his existence was negated by the crushing realization that he was gone.

I tried to go back to my pre-Edward routine, downstairs for breakfast, reading the last paper, but I felt like an echo of myself, a trapped image forever going through the same motions. I looked at the mess we'd left in the living room, the overturned furniture, the shredded remnants of the donation bag. I sat heavily on the sofa, thinking that just a day ago, he had been lying here.

Realizing sitting there doing nothing was not going to change the situation, I forced myself up and back to the kitchen. I cleaned up the baked beans from the night before, dampened a cloth and wiped my spoon clean, and took another few mouthfuls of rainwater. The sky seemed to be churning, clouds swirling and quarreling in the heavens. Maybe we would get rain today.

The possibility of rain at least gave me something new to do to avoid thinking about my loneliness. I went outside and circled the house, checking on all my rain-collection receptacles. After everything seemed to be in order, I lay on my back on the grass in the front lawn, my arms stretched wide as if to hug the sky, and watched the clouds billow and darken.

I played with the grass with my fingers, and the sensation triggered memories that seeped into my head, unbidden, of sleeping next to him on the sofa as he breathed shallowly. I'd drift off, and when I'd wake from a nightmare, my fingers would be twisted in his hair, which felt surprisingly delicate despite the cold hardness of the rest of him. His hair felt remarkably like … hair. If he'd been human and this starved, his hair probably would have fallen out in clumps, but the strands clung stubbornly to his scalp, soft and inviting, if not exactly warm.

I smelled green, a reminder of late spring at Forks High, when we'd have the windows open, and the sound of the lawn mowers mixed with the smell of cut grass and the potent gasoline vapors would interrupt the teacher's droning, and we'd know summer was near. I realized I'd been tearing out grass by the handful, my fingers now stained with chlorophyll.

The ubiquitous presence of grass frustrated me. It was the only thing that grew readily, the only thing that could survive the scarcity of rain and the dullness of the sunshine. All edible plants had shriveled and disappeared. I could barely remember what fresh produce tasted like. Once, desperate to eat something green and from the ground, I'd tried to chew on a few tough blades, but I'd choked and gagged and hadn't tried it again. The trees somehow still lived, but they produced no fruit. There were no bees left to help pollinate, or maybe the trees had just lost the will to try to bring new life into the world. Maybe there were nutrients enough in the soil and air to survive, but not to thrive, not to truly _live_.

Every day on my walks, I would touch tree trunks as I passed, like a strange, passive version of Duck-Duck-Goose. Sometimes the bark would crumble away in my fingers, and I'd know that tree would soon be gone too. The trees didn't die as rapidly as the people had—I thought of the redwood trees in Muir Woods Charlie and I had visited once on a summer vacation, my amazement that some of these trees had been alive when the Declaration of Independence had been signed. I wondered if those trees still lived, or if they'd decided they had seen enough of this world.

Maybe one tree a month died, but I mourned each one as if it had been a friend. Some of the more unusually shaped ones I'd named, wishing that dryads existed. "Won't you come to life for me?" I'd ask.

If the wind blew, shaking the dry leaves, I'd pretend it had answered me. "Not yet," I'd imagine it had said, gently bowing its head to me.

I brought my fingers to my face and inhaled deeply. The smell of fresh-cut grass was potent, transporting me back to a simpler time, even after the virus had begun to spread, but before it had hit Washington State. We still laughed it off. It was easy to pretend it was just a scary movie on TV when we hadn't yet experienced it firsthand.

_Charlie and Billy were having a serious talk, so they'd sent Jake and me outside. "Go out and play," Charlie said, as if we were still little children._

_I sat on the stoop for a while, the damp cold of the concrete seeping into my jeans, and I poked at the ground with a stick. "What's all that about?" I asked Jake._

_He shrugged. "Tribal shit, I guess. There have been a lot of meetings. People are getting scared. The stars are sending messages. I don't know, Bella. I'm kind of worried. I didn't think I'd be, but, god, I'm just a kid. What if this is it?"_

_I slipped my hand in his and gave it a little squeeze. "It's going to be okay," I said, even if I didn't really believe it. "They're the adults. They're supposed to fix things."_

"_Do you really believe that?" he asked, his eyes wide and frightened. I hadn't seen him this afraid ever. He was always the bold kid, not afraid of spiders or crawly things, of darkness, of things in the woods. _

_I swallowed hard. "Of course," I lied. I squeezed his hand again._

"_I've never even been kissed," he said, looking at his feet. "It might all be over, and I'll die just a kid, a little kid."_

_I knew he was hoping that I'd lean in and kiss him, and I nearly did, but then I thought a pity kiss would be worse than no kiss at all. So instead I laughed and said, "Kissing doesn't make you an adult."_

"_I love you, Bella," he said, dead serious, so I punched him in the arm, hard._

"_Stop that shit right now," I said, and watched as he massaged the place I'd hit him. "Why are you telling me this?"_

"_Ow." His ego seemed more bruised than his arm. "I just, you know, wanted to tell you … in case anything happens. I want you to know that."_

"_Well, nothing is going to happen, dork. And I love you too."_

_He ducked his head more and smiled. We leaned against each other and watched the grass ripple in the wind. It looked almost like rolling waves of the ocean. It was hypnotic, and I began to nod off on his shoulder._

_I woke up as he tried to kiss my temple, and I jerked back. "You asshole," I said, my hand clenched in a fist, ready to pop him one._

"_Sorry," he muttered, holding his hands up defensively. He lowered them slowly. "No, I guess you have every right to hit me." He tilted his head toward me and set his jaw. "I'm ready. Take a swing."_

_He looked so pathetic and scared that I didn't have the heart to slug him. "Well, that takes all the fun out of it," I joked, letting my hand unclench like a flower and drop back by my side, a harmless open palm. _

_His eyes lit up. "So you'll kiss me?"_

"_Oh my fucking fuck, you are relentless!" I stood up and stormed down the stairs, tripping over my untied shoelaces and falling onto the soft grass. _

"_Are you okay, Bells?" He scrambled after me, extending a hand to help me up. I waved him off._

"_I will never kiss you, Jacob Black. Never. So stop with the bugging, okay?" I breathed in the good, earthy smell of the lawn. Spring was coming soon. "Life is going to go on. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing but dances and acne and heartache and term papers and graduations and growing up and college and … life."_

"_Okay," he said, flopping next to me on the grass._

_The front door creaked open behind us, and Charlie and Billy cleared their throats in unison. They both wore the same expression: a falsely bright smile, with eyes clouded over with worry and doubt. "Well, we'd better head back home," said Billy, and Jacob hopped up. He tried to help me up again, but I stubbornly folded my arms. I was still annoyed with him._

"_Well, bye," he said, shrugging, before getting back in the car. I rolled onto my back and waved to him without bothering to get up._

_It was the last time I'd see him—alive, at least. The Quileutes soon closed down the reservation to visitors, hoping the self-imposed quarantine would protect them. But when the virus crept closer and closer to our little corner of Washington State, they hadn't thought that the animals would carry the disease, that the virus was transmitted easily from animal to human, from human to animal and to human again. And with their borders closed, medical aid couldn't get to them—not that it would have helped, once the birds and insects carried the virus to their lands. But the drugs and medical assistance could have at least slowed the disease's rapid takeover of the patient's immune system, or made the patient more comfortable, oblivious. _

_When Charlie got off the phone with Billy that one awful day, telling me that Jacob had fallen ill and died, I sank to the floor in the kitchen, studying the grungy linoleum tile as if it were a map that might tell me what to do, how to think, how to make it through this. I should have kissed him when he asked. It would have meant the world to him. And I couldn't—wouldn't—do it._

_Charlie got down on the floor next to me and tried to wrap me in his arms, but I pushed him away. "Bells, we all hurt," he said._

_I shook my head vigorously. "No, Dad, it's not like that. I had a chance to make his life happy, to give him the one thing he wanted, and I wouldn't, because I didn't want to give him the wrong idea. Because I thought I was better than he was, or something."_

"_What, exactly, was Jacob Black asking for?" Charlie spoke quietly, with hidden menace._

"_Jeez, Dad, no. Just a kiss. He wanted me to kiss him, just so he would have known what it was like, to kiss a girl." I curled onto my side and sobbed. "And now he'll never …"_

_Charlie smoothed out my hair, waited a moment, and then got up to get me a paper towel. "You're too hard on yourself, Bells," he said, squatting again by me. "You might have kissed him, but it wouldn't have changed anything. And if you didn't mean it, well, it wasn't what he would have wanted anyway. He wanted you to feel something for him that you didn't, and you were being honest—with yourself and with him."_

"_Okay, Dad," I said, but guilt still tore at my insides like a rabid dog. A few days later the Quileutes had opened their borders again, in time for Jacob's funeral, and I'd kissed his powdery, unreal forehead during the wake. It was too late then for him anyway, but I felt I owed it to him, somehow._

My face was wet, lying on the same grass where Jacob and I had worried about the end of the world. I thought I was crying, but when I opened my eyes, I saw that it had just started to rain. It began as a few fat drops, and then the heavens ripped apart, pouring down water and soaking me to the bone. I stood up and spread my arms wide, spinning in a slow circle, catching raindrops in my mouth. I was parched, but now I could drink the remainder of the water in the jug inside the house. A rain this hard would give me enough water for weeks.

I stood in the rain and cried for Jacob, for Charlie, for Renee, for all my friends and family and just those people you saw every day but didn't know by name. My hot tears were washed away again and again by the rain, but I couldn't tell if it was forgiving or condemning me.

_It's just rain_, I thought. _It's just wet and cold_._ Not everything has meaning. _I corrected myself: _Nothing has meaning._

With heavy steps, I trudged back into the house, shivering. Folded neatly and set on the banister was one of our large bath towels. I never put towels there, and there certainly hadn't been a towel on the banister before I'd gone outside. _Edward?_ Had he been here? The towel was scratchy and dingy, since rainwater and line-drying didn't exactly recreate the softness of Downy plus a dryer sheet, but at least it was dry, a comfort as my teeth chattered. I wondered what color my lips were.

I dried myself off roughly, feeling just a little bit cleaner. My hair hadn't been soaked like that in several weeks, and I never remembered until I felt it again how much I missed the once-mundane, now precious sensation of damp hair on my neck and shoulders. It reminded me of being late for school, not having time to blow my hair dry. I could hear Charlie yell after me, "You'll catch your death!" as I ran for my truck with a bagel crammed in my mouth.

_I'll catch my death_.

If only it were that easy.

I untied my damp shoelaces and turned my shoes over, hoping they'd dry without getting mildewed. My feet had already started to wrinkle from the wet soles, so unaccustomed they were now to being wet. I wrapped the towel around me as if I were a kid at the beach just coming out of the ocean, looking for her family in the sea of blankets and bright sun umbrellas.

I wanted to call out for Edward, but I was too afraid of hearing nothing but the absence of his voice, so I wrapped the towel more tightly around myself as if it were his arms, aching to know where he was right this minute.

Heel-toe, heel-toe, slowly I walked into the living room. All evidence of the struggle from yesterday was now gone, the shreds of plastic swept away, the afghan carefully folded and placed over the arm of the sofa. The coffee table had been put back into place, the furniture righted and set back into the divots in the rug. It was as if he'd never been here. I touched the sore spots on my shoulders again, pushing against the barely scabbed over wounds, wincing and rejoicing in the pain. "He _was_ real," I said to the room. "He _was_ here. _He_ did this to me." But the furniture just sat there like always, like it was any normal day except for the rainwater that cascaded down the windowpanes.

I sat on the couch, knees to my chest, hair still dripping at the very ends. I listened to the rain tap against the roof and the windows, glad for the sound, glad not to be sitting in silence.

I stared out the window, squinting to see through the windowpanes streaked with the unceasing rain. Was it the movement of the water down the glass, or did I see something—someone—outside? I ran to the big window, pressing my nose against the glass, and I could swear I saw a form hurrying away. "Edward?" I dared to whisper, and when I pulled back, all I could see was the smudge my nose had left on the glass.


	13. Alone

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Alone**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 13: Alone**

The rain didn't stop, even when darkness fell. I wouldn't put the towel away. It was the only tangible thing that Edward had given me. Well, sure, it was _my_ towel, and it was more like he _placed_ the towel where I might find it, but still. It was a gift from him, one that hadn't caused me pain.

I wrapped myself in the towel, rubbing my face on its scratchiness, and I stretched out on the couch where Edward had lain for so many days. He'd left a slight indentation in the sofa cushions, and if I moved _just so_, I could fit into the contours his body had left, as if the couch had a memory of its own.

Sleep didn't come. I was so used to dead silence that the storm outside prevented my brain from shutting off. Still, I was grateful for the rain—it would be good to have enough water to wash, to drink as much as I wanted. The raindrops tapped against the roof and the glass, and if I squeezed my eyes shut hard I could pretend that it was just a late rainstorm that had knocked out the power. Charlie wasn't home from work yet, and it was a normal day. Just a blackout, and when Charlie came home, we would sit on the living room rug and try to play Scrabble by candlelight. Blackout nights with Charlie were the best. If Charlie didn't like the tiles he'd drawn, he'd hold them one by one in the flame of the nearest candle, trying to set the little wooden tiles on fire.

"You're really just an arsonist at heart, aren't you?" I'd ask, and Charlie would pretend to be offended and spell out some completely immature word like "poo" on his turn. "Who will police the police?" I'd say, shaking my head, and Charlie would laugh and twirl the ends of his mustache like a cartoon villain. In the candlelight, the contours of his face were exaggerated, and he looked almost sinister until I reminded myself that he was just Charlie, my goofy dad.

I smiled at the memory until I remembered that this wasn't just a blackout. Charlie wouldn't come tonight. The lights would never come back on. It was just me. I flopped around on the couch, trying to get comfortable, but my isolation was unbearable tonight. God, I missed Charlie. I shouldn't have indulged in the memory, so rich and precious, of our special father-daughter time.

Even though I'd been alone for months, I'd never felt so desolate. Why had Edward ever come? I'd made an okay life for myself here, sticking to my schedule, counting my steps. He changed everything, gave me something to look forward to. And then he took it all away again.

Well, no, that wasn't fair—it had been my fault. I was the one who'd awoken the predator within him. He hadn't wanted to; he'd known what he'd become. But I pushed him. I wanted to take care of him. I wanted him to be healthy. I offered up my body and ruined everything.

"Charlie," I said out loud, listening to the rain. "Why aren't you here? Why won't you come home?" There was no use sleeping. I kicked off the blanket, but got up carefully in order not to disturb the print Edward had left on the sofa.

In the dark, I felt my way toward the shelf in the short bookcase we used for all the board games and sat down. I touched the sides of the boxes, until I felt the ripped sides of the Scrabble box lid mended with masking tape—the game had been Charlie's set from college. The last time we'd taped the sides back together must have been when I was about ten. The tape was now brittle and flaking off, the adhesive dried and useless. I shook the box, and when I heard the familiar rattling of wooden tiles, I got up off the floor.

I wrapped the towel back around me like a cape and clutched the worn box to my chest. Carefully I made my way out the back door, along the same path that I'd run before when I was escaping Edward. The back door was hanging on by a bolt or two, swinging in the wind like a loose tooth.

"_Daddy, what's happening to me?" I cried in terror. I held up a tooth, my mouth full of blood. It was the few weeks of the summer when I'd visit my dad._

"_Oh, honey, you're growing up. One of your baby teeth fell out."_

"_I'm not a baby," I huffed. "I'm five years old."_

"_That's just what they're called, squirt," he said, rumpling my hair. "You have two sets of teeth now, but one is invisible. Isn't that neat?"_

"_Where is the other set?"_

"_It's buried deep in your gums. But when you're ready, they start to push through, and they make the other teeth fall out. Just like this one." He took the tooth from me and appraised it like a jeweler. "Kind of neat that you did it here, and not with your mom," he said, plunking it back into my tiny palm._

_I studied the bit of bone and enamel in my hand. The roots of the tooth looked like a spiky crown. A bit of my flesh was still stuck to it, and I pressed the sharp points of the bone into the pad of my fingertip._

"_What are the new teeth called?" I asked._

"_Adult teeth, permanent teeth … I'm not sure," Charlie said, shrugging. "Maybe I should have paid more attention in biology."_

"_Bio-what?"_

"_Biology. It's, like, science class, but about living things. I think it means 'study of life.'"_

"_I have a hole in my mouth," I said, slightly forlorn._

"_You'll get your new tooth—see?" Charlie was looking into my mouth and examining the gap with his pinkie. "I can feel the new one poking out, you know, like how tulips in the front yard poke their heads up in the spring?"_

_When he'd taken his finger out of my mouth, I poked at the spot with my tongue. The flesh was still sore and bloody, but I could feel the sharp tip of something against my tongue._

"_Tonight, you'll put this tooth under your pillow, and in the morning, there will be a surprise."_

_Charlie helped me wrap the tooth in a tissue, and we both tucked the little parcel under my pillow. In the morning, just as he said, there was a crisp one dollar bill underneath. "Wow!" I rarely had paper money, just the odd bits of loose change._

"_The Tooth Fairy came, sweetheart!"_

"_I want to call Mommy," I said. So Charlie dialed the phone for me, and we both told her what had happened._

"_You're growing up so fast," she said, and she sounded sad. "I thought you'd lose your first tooth in my house."_

_It was weird; I felt like I'd somehow betrayed her by not holding onto my teeth until I was back home with her._

"_Why does the Tooth Fairy give money for my teeth?" I asked after we'd hung up the phone._

"_I'm not sure," said Charlie. "Maybe she can use magic to turn the teeth into something else. Maybe she can tap it with her wand and turn one tooth into a giant castle, like the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella did with the pumpkin. Maybe everyone where she's from lives in a big, fine tooth-house."_

"_But the new teeth—they stay forever?" I asked._

_Charlie smiled and tapped his own teeth. "These are the ones I got when I lost my baby teeth. See? They're still strong. They stay with you your whole life."_

"_You had baby teeth too?"_

"_Yes, they all fell out, like they're supposed to. That's how stuff works," he said._

_I tried to picture Charlie as a kid my age, just my size but with a kid-sized mustache. He used to be just like me. Did that mean that one day I'd be just like him?_

"_I don't want to grow up," I said suddenly._

"_Why not, Bells?"_

"_If I grow up, I'll be too big for you to hold me."_

"_Oh, honey, you'll always be my baby. I'll always hold you—as long as you want me to."_

The cold rain splashed on my cheeks, and I thought how Charlie would never hold me again. I wasn't wearing shoes, and I sat near the spot where I'd buried him, my clothes completely damp from the rain and the ground. "Charlie, I've brought out your Scrabble set. Do you want to play?"

I set up the board and shook the bag with the wooden tiles. "I'm afraid we're out of candles, so you can't set your bad tiles on fire," I said. The rain would probably warp the board, maybe ruin it forever. How many years had Charlie carried this box from one dorm to another, from his first apartment to a string of bachelor pads before he unpacked this box in the home he'd purchased with his new wife? How many games had he played on this board? I wonder if he'd known when he'd first gotten the game that someday he'd be playing and arguing with his daughter with the same set, the same tiles. Or if he knew that here, in the backyard, in the rain, on the ground above where he was buried, was where the board would finally become completely useless.

I drew tiles for both of us. "Ooh, rough hand, Daddy," I said, tracing the letters on his tiles in the dark. "You got all vowels." I could just hear him muttering under his breath.

"I'll go first," I said. I always went first, because we went youngest to oldest. I felt my tiles and put down L, O, N, E. "Lone," I said. "Like the Lone Ranger."

I knew the tiles by heart. "Each tile is one point, and I'm on the double word score, so eight points. It's your turn."

I grabbed the first of his tiles, an A, and put it in front of the word I'd made. Now the board said: ALONE.

"Good word, Daddy," I said, "but you get only five points."

I couldn't play anymore. I was too tired to try to play by feel in the dark and the rain. My sadness overwhelmed me, and I stood up and kicked the board. I could hear tiles flying, landing with soft thuds on the wet lawn. I began to sob, and I screamed as loudly as I could toward the skies. "Why me?" I cried. "I hate this. I hate being alive. I hate being the only one left. Goddammit!" It was sort of liberating to shout at the top of my lungs, knowing I wouldn't disturb anyone, that there was no one left to disturb.

"Why won't you answer?" I demanded. "Answer me! Give me a reason," I said, sinking to my knees. "Give me a reason to live," I sobbed into my hands. I didn't even know who I was talking to anymore.

I heard a twig snap, and I stilled. Had I really heard something? But then I felt arms around me, and cold fingers on my face wiped away the hot tears that mingled with the cool rain.

"For me?" the voice in the dark said.

"Edward?" He couldn't be real, no. I must have fallen asleep. But sleep was usually more comfortable, more warm.

"Yes, Bella. It's me."

"Are you going to kill me now?"

He was quiet, and all I could hear was my breath and the rain. "No," he said finally. "Not today."

"I'm so tired," I said, and then my knees buckled. He caught me and lifted me up as if I were a small child, and carefully carried me into the house.

"You're soaked," he said. "And after I went to all the trouble of finding your towels."

My teeth began to chatter. "There are more upstairs, in the linen closet."

"I know," he said, and he set me down like a fragile parcel by the mantel. "Can you stand? Or would you rather sit?"

"I can stand," I said, not wanting to get the furniture damp.

"I'll be right back," he said, and I held onto the mantelpiece.

"You promise?"

But he'd already gone. I heard him lightly step up the stairs and return before I'd even exhaled.

I couldn't see him, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I knew he was near. He began rubbing me down with a new towel, and I felt like a helpless baby. My arms hang limply by my sides as he dried me. Water was pooling by my feet, and I could hear the drip, drip, drip from my clothes and hair onto the tiles by the fireplace.

"I brought you a clean nightgown," he said. He'd been upstairs for only a second, but it may have been one of those vampire things.

I let him peel the wet things off me. I held my arms up like a kid as he put the nightgown over my head. It didn't occur to me to be self-conscious. It was so dark anyway, and I was confused and still numb, both in body and in mind.

"Come on," he said as he buttoned the top of the nightgown. He wrapped the towel around my hair, twisted it into a turban—"My sister Alice liked to take showers, and she always did this to her hair, even though it was so short"—and picked me up, taking me back to the sofa.

"You should get some sleep," he said, and I leaned against him.

"You're soaking wet too," I said.

"I don't care. It doesn't bother me," he said.

"Well, it bothers me. You're making me cold. My dad has some clothes in his room. They should be dry. I haven't touched them."

"All right," he sighed, jumping over me. I counted the seconds he was gone, wondering, again, if I had just imagined that he was here. But my clothes were dry, and I had a towel in my hair, and before I could wonder how long he would take, he was already back. Usually, when we'd spent the night on the couch together, he'd been on the inside, and I'd lain on the edge of the sofa, trying not to fall out and on the floor.

"Scoot over," he said, and I turned on my side, facing the back of the couch. My nose touched the cushions. He slipped in behind me, pulling the blanket over us both.

"Now sleep," he said, and he hummed something I didn't recognize, until I dreamed of a sky full of stars all singing to me, and a pair of cool arms as large as the universe.


	14. Bound

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Bound**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 14: Bound**

I woke from a wonderful dream, in which I had been no longer alone. _Had to have been a dream_, I thought. _Nothing's ever that nice_. I tried to remember … _arms around me, sweet breath in my ear, the rise and fall of the chest of someone embracing me …_ I didn't want to wake up. I wanted the dream to go on forever.

My stomach growled, and I really had to pee. I wouldn't be able to continue the dream. "Don't want … to wake up," I mumbled crossly.

"You don't have to if you don't want," someone said, and I was jerked awake in surprise. I struggled to get up, but I was held fast, encircled by something strong, unbreakable, like the shoulder harness on a roller coaster. I struggled to free myself, still half-asleep and beginning to panic.

"Shh," the voice said, and the thing binding me down began to pat my back.

It was no dream.

"Edward?" I asked, my face pressed into one of Charlie's old shirts.

"Yes, I'm here," he said.

"That really happened? Last night? You?"

"I'm here," he repeated.

I pushed up against his chest so I could look him in the face. "You're real," I said.

"I am."

"You came back."

"I did."

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because I couldn't stay away from you."

I felt as though we were reciting lines from the Baltimore catechism.

"You were going to kill me," I said.

"I was." He looked away from me, ashamed. "The demon in me sometimes makes it hard for me to … control myself, Bella. I'm … sorry you had to see that. Truly sorry."

"It was my fault anyway," I shrugged. "I shouldn't have pushed you. You knew what you would become."

"Bella, regardless of what you may think of my kind, we do have free will. I failed you, not the other way around. You were generous with your heart and your body. I'm … strong again. Stronger, at least."

"So, what was it like?" I asked. "Where did you go?"

We were both sitting up now, side by side on the sofa. He held my hand, drawing circles on the back of it with his cool fingertip.

"At first, I forced myself not to move. I pretended I'd been nailed to the earth; I imagined metal spikes were impaling my feet. I made myself believe in it, convinced myself I felt the searing pain, so that I would be strong enough not to follow you, not to hunt you down."

I shivered, and he rearranged the blanket around me. "How long were you there?" I asked through chattering teeth.

"I watched you run away, and I pierced my feet over and over in my mind. I don't know how long. Time … I always had trouble understanding time. Lifetimes used to pass in one blink of an eye, and now? Now that there is no one, time seems to reflect back upon itself in a loop, into infinite regress."

I nodded. I understood the stretch of time, the hopelessness, just wishing it would finally all just end.

"When I felt strong enough not to follow you, I began to run. I ran in ever-widening circles so I could be sure not to find you by accident. I ran all the way to the shore, all the way back into the eastern edge of the state, but I couldn't bear to leave Washington, not when I knew you were within its borders."

"Did you find anything? Did you see anyone else?"

Edward leaned his head back onto the sofa cushions, looking straight up at the ceiling. "There's no one here, Bella. Not in this state. Not anywhere I passed on the way here to you. Maybe in some corner of the earth, some may have survived, maybe if they went underground before the worst came."

Before he answered, I had dared to hope we weren't the last ones, that maybe I just hadn't traveled far enough to find others, and now I felt the crushing disappointment. What if he had found someone, just one more person? Maybe I wouldn't have felt so hopeless that this was the end, and that this was some horrible purgatory I had to atone in until I finally died and joined the others.

But what had I ever done to deserve this? Was it because of Jacob?

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

"I can smell them, Bella. I can hear thoughts of any living thing—except for you. It's been silent out there for a long time now. I used to pray for silence, for the stilling of all the noise in my head. I was so foolish," he said. "Maybe this is my punishment."

"Maybe it's mine," I said.

"You, Bella?" he asked, sitting up again and looking deeply into my eyes. "What could you possibly have done? You are an innocent."

I thought of Jacob in his casket, dead before he'd been kissed, and I thought of the blood seeping out of the gunshot wound of the boy who'd tried to attack me. "Not so innocent," I said, hanging my head down in shame.

"I don't believe that."

I just stared at my hands, feeling the ghost of the sting of the pistol recoiling as I pulled the trigger. "You don't know much about me, Edward."

He tipped my head up with one finger. "No matter what sins you may have committed on this earth, you are still an innocent. I could taste it in your blood—the blood you so willingly gave me."

"That's preposterous," I said. "You can't … possibly _taste_ that."

"I have tasted the blood of murderers and sinners and the worst examples of humanity. Your blood is pure."

His eyes darkened for a moment, and I became afraid. He turned away from me, clenching his fists and breathing in and out, in and out, grinding his teeth together. "I'm sorry," he said after a while. "I almost lost control again. I should leave you."

"No, don't!" I grabbed one of his hands and placed it on my cheek. "I would rather die by your hand than live alone. I can't … I just can't be alone anymore."

"Bella, you don't know how dangerous I can be."

"Kill me then," I said. "Kill me. If you need to leave, promise me you'll kill me first."

He sucked air between his teeth and shook his head vigorously. "No. I cannot make such a promise. You don't know what you're asking for."

"You can't leave me." My palms began to sweat, and the room seemed to shrink and expand as if I were in the belly of some great beast. I gestured around me as I fought the feeling of vertigo. "This is no way to live. If you're here, I … I have a reason to wake up in the morning. If you go, I'll have nothing. If you go, I'd rather feel nothing. I'd rather be gone." I was shrieking now, tearing at my hair and rocking back and forth.

He tried to untangle my fingers from my matted hair, but I held fast. "Hush," he said. "I won't go anywhere."

"You can kill me," I said. "If that happens … I'd be okay with that. It would be a mercy. I would thank you with my dying breath."

"Do you think I could live with myself if I harmed you, Bella?" he asked softly. "Why do you think I left Forks in the first place? And why I begged you to run away?"

"Just don't leave me," I said. "If you leave me again …" I thought of the gun upstairs with one bullet left in it. "I can … finish things … my own way." I didn't specify, but he still understood.

"Don't you dare," he said, putting his forehead to mine.

"Then don't go away," I said, staring right back at him, forehead to forehead.

We locked eyes, neither of us moving, neither of us breathing. Who would move first?

Edward broke away at last. "I will stay as long as I can be strong around you," he said. "And you will promise not to harm yourself."

"I promise no such thing," I said. "I still have a say over my life. Everything—everyone I love—has been taken from me. Don't take away the last thing I have left."

"You have more than one thing left, Bella."

"And what's that?" I snapped. "What do I have? Have you looked around? Have you seen this place? This world? My life? _I buried my own father after watching him die_," I said, on the verge of hysteria. "What could I _possibly_ have left?"

"Me," he said quietly. "You have me."

"Do I?"

"You always have."

I laughed bitterly. "You have a funny way of showing it," I said.

"Bella, ever since the moment I met you, I have tried to keep you alive. And at the time, keeping you alive meant going as far away from you as I could. Now it seems keeping you alive means staying by your side. And as hard as that is … there is nowhere else I'd rather be."

"How will we live together?" I wondered aloud. "Is this misery for you?"

"Every time your heart beats, I am grateful to be here, even if I had to watch my family die. Even if all the suffering and horror I saw as this world destroyed itself, as its inhabitants turned on each other and became like wild animals … if it led me back to you in this moment, led me to be sitting by your side underneath a blanket with your warm body pressed against mine, this is a good world."

My stomach growled again, and Edward said, "You should get some food in you. Are you strong enough to feed yourself?"

"I am not a child," I said, getting up.

It had stopped raining. I walked outside barefoot, feeling the mud squish between my toes. I walked into the woods in the backyard, hiding behind a thick tree so Edward couldn't see me relieving myself. I splashed water on my face from one of the large rain barrels, and drank water greedily out of my cupped hands, dipping them again and again into the full container. I'd lived with my thirst for so long that it was strange finally to quench my thirst, to be not wanting.

When I came back into the house, Edward had set the kitchen table with an assortment of cans, the can opener, and one place setting. I never used our old plates anymore—it seemed pointless. In any case, I couldn't waste precious water to wash dirty dishes.

"I didn't know what you wanted to eat for breakfast," he said sheepishly.

Even though I'd snapped at him earlier for trying to feed me, it was touching to see the table set. It reminded me of those days when I'd be at school late for meetings, or doing research at the library, and Charlie would keep dinner warm for me, one place setting on a single placemat. He knew I loved dessert, but sometimes we had nothing sweet in the house but candy. He'd line up gummi bears at the edge of the placemat, and they would act as a silent, disapproving audience for my late dinner.

"Thank you, Edward," I said. "That's very kind of you." I tried to control the waver in my voice.

He sat with me and watched me eat. "Doesn't it make you hungry?" I asked.

"That's not … exactly food to me," he said, eyeing my forkful of cold Beefaroni with distaste.

I laughed. "It's not really food to anyone. You get used to it."

"I lived in Italy for a while, and not once did I see a pasta dish combining the words 'beef' and the suffix '-roni,'" he said, still puzzled.

"Don't think about it too hard," I said. "You'll hurt yourself. It's not food, and it's not remotely Italian." I stopped myself from adding, _And this isn't any sort of life_.

We spent a quiet day at home, our first together where we were both strong and awake and where my life, as far as I knew, wasn't immediately in danger. He wanted to read to me, to make up for all the days I'd read to him when he was too famished to move. I felt much younger than I was as we looked at the bookshelves together, trying to pick a book to read. No one had read to me in years.

"_Hard Times_?" he suggested, pulling a small paperback off the shelf.

I stuck out my tongue. "No Dickens. That shouldn't even _be_ here."

"Do you want swooning Victorian women?" he asked, half-bent over and peering at a low shelf.

"Not so much," I said.

"Stephen King?"

"No, this world is scary enough as it is."

"Maybe you should just pick," he said.

I turned my head sideways so I could read the spines on the books. I was suddenly reminded of all those weekends when I had nothing better to do, and I'd want to watch a movie, but I'd stare at our collection of DVDs, unable to decide. There were so many choices, that it was paralyzing. Choosing one closed off all other possibilities.

It was just like me to give up the choice, to leave it to fate. I closed my eyes and ran my finger along the spines, finally choosing a book that just felt interesting. I laughed when I opened my eyes. It was a collection of _Calvin and Hobbes_ comic strips.

"You're serious?" Edward asked as I handed him the anthology.

"Yes. And describe all the pictures to me," I said, settling into my spot on the couch.

He read panel after panel to me, describing the drawings even though I could look right over his shoulder at them, and it was funny to see him completely lost, not understanding the humor. "Why are they named for theologians and philosophers?" he asked. "And is this tiger real or not? Sometimes he's a stuffed doll, and sometimes he's alive. Is there some deeper meaning?"

I shrugged. "I haven't read that since I was a little kid. And maybe it doesn't matter, as long as Calvin thinks he's real."

"Does predestination have anything to do with this?" he asked.

"Just read it," I said, rolling my eyes. I was annoyed, but it was strangely wonderful to feel annoyed, to feel such a shallow emotion. It was like junk food for my soul. I hadn't felt such comforting pettiness in a long time.

The sun was setting as he finished the anthology. "I still have no idea what's going on," he said, and I laughed, a real, deep, belly laugh. "Why is that funny?" he asked, frowning a little.

"I couldn't explain it if I tried," I said, feeling lighter than I had in ages. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

"All right," he said, carefully putting the book back in its rightful spot. After I'd gotten my shoes on, he offered me his arm, and we walked into the dimming light.

"You can leave the door open," I said. "I always do when I go."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it reminds me that I belong somewhere, that some place is waiting for me to come back."

We walked, and for once I did not count my steps. I led him to my favorite trees, telling him stories I'd imagined for each one, how this one's gnarled branches had come from a bar brawl the tree had had over a pretty willow on the other side of the forest. He chuckled. "You are a strange creature," he said.

"I'm not," I said. I wanted him to understand, so I dragged him to the willow in question. Its supple branches hung down like a curtain around us, and I pulled off one long frond. "Do you promise to stay with me?" I asked, suddenly turning serious.

"I do," he said. "As long as I can keep you safe. As long as I'm not a danger to you."

"That's not good enough," I said. "I'm a danger to myself if you leave."

"Then I must stay," he said, sighing and looking sad.

I wound the frond around our hands. "I bind you to me," I said. "We're one now, two halves of all that's left alive here. We need each other to survive. We are bound."

"I was bound to you before now," he said. "You just couldn't see it."

"It was only in your mind. You were bound to me, but I was not bound to you. Now we are bound to each other."

"What happens now?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," I said, looking at our hands tied together with pale green leaves.

"How about this?" he asked, leaning in and kissing me softly on the lips. I reached my free hand around his neck to pull him closer to me, and we embraced under the willow, hidden from the rest of the world. It was as if I could feel invisible cords tethering my heart to his. I shivered again, but not from cold. Something had shifted. Something had changed.

The willow branches swayed in the gentle wind as if in dance. He kissed me again, his cold wrist tied to my warm one, his free arm wrapped around me, pressing into the small of my back as the leaves rustled in what I imagined was hushed approval.

* * *

**A/N: Uh, holy shizz, the Twi25s are supposed to be done by April 1st. I kind of don't think I'll make the deadline, but I'm going to do my best to barf up the rest of the story by then.**


	15. Red

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Red**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 15: Red**

How long did we stand bound together, the willow tree our only witness? For a while, for longer than I could count, time stopped. If this could be the moment I could freeze, my forever would be bearable. But all good things come to an end; only nightmares spin out into eternity. He pulled away from me.

"Was that all right?" he asked, as if he'd hurt me.

I nodded. I wondered if he could hear my heart stutter and lurch.

We stood under the canopy of willow branches with our hands still tied, just standing quietly, waiting for the sun to finish the day's journey across the sky. I knew that the sun was actually the fixed point, that we were the ones who were moving, but from where I stood, it felt as though everything around me changed. I was the constant.

The earth turned so swiftly on its axis, yet I couldn't feel its motion in my body. I wondered why that was, but I was also thankful that I couldn't feel the earth's speed. It had been hard enough to fly, back in the days before the virus, to think that I was hurtling through space at over 500 miles an hour. How much faster was I moving all the time, even when standing still?

I got dizzy just considering it, and I stumbled. Edward was there, steadying me. "You must be hungry," he said.

"No more so than usual," I said. The sun had finally sunk down, leaving us in pitch blackness. I knew the forest well, but I usually did not venture out after dark.

"Can you see anything at all?" I asked. I felt as though a blanket had been thrown over me. I could feel the coolness of his wrist against mine and hear his footsteps shuffling along the damp forest floor.

"I can see heat. I can see waves coming from your body. Your body is like a beacon."

"You can … see my body heat?"

"Yeah."

"And you can … I mean, you can see _because_ of my body heat?"

"Pretty much. You light my path."

"Well, keep me from stumbling, then," I said, squeezing his hand. He squeezed back just a tiny bit, and I wondered how much he had to control himself not to crush the bones in my hand.

He led us back to the house. I couldn't see a thing, so it was strange to think I was providing the light for him to find our way home. I knew we were close because the air around the house was different—maybe it was just … _lived in_.

Once inside the house, we kicked off our shoes and walked to the sofa. I couldn't bear to undo the knot that bound us together, and he made no move to either. So we climbed into the sofa, careful not to pull our arms apart for fear of tearing the botanic rope. It reminded me, strangely enough, of being in a three-legged race.

Because our hands were bound, we lay down facing each other, where we normally would have been facing the same way, or he'd be on his back and I on my side. There was something almost uncomfortably intimate having my face so close to his, my exhales becoming his inhales, all our air shared.

I wondered what he would do while I slept.

"You won't go anywhere, right?" I asked.

He just held up our tied hands in response.

"What do you do while I sleep?" I mumbled, already drowsy in his embrace.

"I listen to you breathe. Sometimes you grind your teeth, and I try to stop you. I hope your dreams aren't disturbing you. I watch your heat light up the room. You make the walls glow red."

"Isn't that boring?" I said, burying my yawn in his—well, Charlie's—shirt.

"On the contrary," Edward laughed. "Your heart beats. You breathe. You are the only creature on earth who does these things. You're an anomaly."

I was going to punch him for calling me an anomaly, even though I thought he didn't mean it in an insulting way, but the day had been exhausting. Just being around another person's energy, given the amount of food I was eating, was draining. I supposed that the blood I'd lost had also weakened me.

He hummed a melody, his lips buzzing against my forehead, and I slipped into peaceful, dreamless slumber.

***

The sunlight prickled even through my closed eyelids. As I came into consciousness, the light through my thin skin was tinted red. I wondered if this was how Edward saw my light in the dark.

I groaned and stretched and slowly opened my eyes. "You're real," I said, as I did the morning before.

"I am," he said, as if we'd practiced this.

"You came back."

"I did."

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because I couldn't stay away from you."

"You were going to kill me," I said.

"I was."

The repetition of yesterday's words was comforting. Patterns, habits, rituals—I needed them to divide this monotonous forever into bearable pieces. I understood then that we would repeat these words every morning, for as many mornings as we had left. I was glad Edward seemed to understand that, even if I hadn't said as much out loud

The frond from the willow tree had dried out overnight, and its leaves had become brittle. Some of the leaves had crumpled as I slept, leaving only tiny stems with a scrap of green. "I suppose we need to cut this," I said.

"We're bound in other ways now," Edward said. "This is merely cosmetic."

He put his hand on the dried frond to break it, and I put my free hand on his, and without counting out loud or making eye contact, we broke the tie at the same time.

I wiggled my fingers now that they were free, and my wrist still felt the ghost of the cord that had tethered me to him. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine it was still there. I wondered how long this feeling would last.

"Something's changed," I said after we'd sat in silence for a while.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure," I said, gazing out the window. "But something is different. I feel like … something has fundamentally shifted. Do you feel it?"

"I don't know," he said, and I was glad, at least, that he didn't feel the need to lie to me.

"Are you hungry?" he asked gently. His body was tensed up, as if he wanted to leap up and bring me food.

"I'm all right at the moment," I said. "I'm going to change my clothes, and then I thought maybe we could walk again."

"I think my things ought to be dry by now," Edward said, examining the plaid flannel shirt he wore. "I feel bad for wearing your dad's clothing."

"I suppose it is a little confusing for me," I admitted.

We both changed, meeting at the top of the stairs. Edward looked less like a lumberjack in his own clothing, which was a good thing.

"Are we going on the same walk today?" he asked as we left the house, letting the door swing open behind us.

"I'm not sure," I said.

After we'd walked for a while down the deserted road, I asked, "Am I walking too slowly for you?"

He smiled, shaking his head. "No human could keep up with me," he said. "I've grown used to it. It's like the dreams I remember from when I was human, the ones where you're trying to run away from something, and it's as if your feet are mired in glue."

"So you're saying that walking with me is like a living nightmare?"

"You would look at it that way, wouldn't you?" he said, a smile creeping onto his face.

"How fast _can_ you go?" I asked.

"Where do you want to go?"

I looked toward the horizon. "I don't know. Somewhere I haven't been for a while. I go only as far as I can get in half the daylight. I like coming home every night."

"Climb onto my back," he said, crouching down so I could hop on.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a piggyback ride—maybe one summer playing chicken in the community pool. I felt like a small kid again. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell Charlie again, feel him carrying me after a long outing when my little legs could carry me no longer.

"Ready?" he asked. "I've got you, but you need to hold on too."

I had my arms wrapped around his neck, and if he were human, I'd probably have been choking him. But he didn't need to breathe. "I'm holding on," I said.

He began to run, really run, and it was like being on a galloping horse, where the ground seemed to disappear underneath me, and the world streaked by my eyes, green and brown and blue. I screamed partially in terror, partially in delight.

"Are you okay?" he panted, not breaking his stride.

"Y-yes," I said, jostled by his steps. His feet were a blur, too fast for me to make out individual movement.

"Wait!" he said, stopping so suddenly that I nearly flew off his back. His arms held me close as I slipped forward.

"What is it?"

"Something … something smells different. Like nothing else I've smelled in a long time," he said, closing his eyes and sniffing the air. He put me gently on my feet and steadied me as I got my land legs back.

"Different good or different bad?" I asked, my heart beating in my ears. I was suddenly so afraid—of what, I didn't know. Change?

"I don't know," he said, taking my hand and pulling me along as he sniffed. "This way," he said.

He kept his eyes closed and let the scent lead him, while I watched, fascinated. I tried to sniff at the air, but it just smelled like air. Air and green things. We were rather far out in the country, and maybe things were just a little fresher. Fewer people had lived here, so there wasn't the ever-present smell of decay as there was closer to home. The air, especially after the heavy rain, just smelled _clean_.

He pulled me through a field of waist-high grasses, toward a grove of trees. His eyes were closed, so I saw it first—a surprising burst of red in the sea of green and brown.

"Oh," I gasped. "Oh, look." I pointed as he opened his eyes. "Is that what you smell?"

We walked slowly, silently, as if we were afraid the slightest movement or sound would make the vision dissolve. We crept, holding our breath. I willed my heart to beat more quietly, my feet to make less noise.

The red did not fade. The red grew brighter, larger.

We finally were at the tree that was different from all the others, the one branch bowed toward the ground, straining against the weight of the shiny red orb.

"Can it be?" I whispered, afraid to break the spell.

"Touch it," he said, guiding my hand. I let the red object sit in my cupped hand, trying not to disturb it, worrying it would shatter if I breathed too hard.

It was an apple, a shiny red apple, the first apple I'd seen since everyone and everything had died. I thought maybe it was just an illusion, but I bent my head down and smelled its sweetness. It brought to mind crisp fall days, the sound of raking, the smell of freshly baked pie and leaves burning. The smell unlocked so many mundane, forgotten memories that I began to cry.

"I was beginning to think I'd only imagined that smell," I said, still cupping the apple reverently in my hands.

Edward looked at me and said, "Now you know what I felt when I saw you again."

I stared at the apple, and he stared at me, and neither of us moved. When the apple bobbed cheerily on its branch, its glossy skin skimming my palms, I could feel the invisible strings that bound our hearts tugging us even closer. _It's here because of us_, I found myself thinking, and I bent my head down to smell its fragrant skin again to make sure it was real.

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A/N: Yeah, so I have decided that I'm definitely not going to make the April 1****st**** deadline, but I will still try to finish this story in a timely fashion. Thanks for your patience and understanding. **


	16. Vibrant

**The [Now Totally Overdue] Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Vibrant**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 16: Vibrant**

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked as I held the apple in my hands, still attached to the tree.

My mouth watered imagining biting into the crisp skin, the crunch and burst of juice, the feel of sweetness sliding down my throat. It had been so long since I'd eaten anything fresh, anything not completely soft and mush. But if I ate the apple, it would be gone. Its scent would be lost, and who knew if there'd ever be another one?

"I don't know," I said, letting my hands drop to my side. The apple bobbed, dancing on its branch like a puppet on a string.

"It's been a long time since you've had one, hasn't it?" he asked, bringing my palm up to his face and inhaling deeply. "It's already perfumed your skin."

"What if it's the only one?"

"Would you let it wither and die on the branch just because you fear it's the last of its kind?"

"That's not the only thing," I said, watching as the apple slowly came to rest. "I mean, what if it's not very good? What if it ruins my memory of what apples tasted like?"

I thought of the alternatives. It did seem somehow a shame, a waste, to let the apple just fall and rot. Then it might have been the last apple, and for what purpose? Just to look pretty?

"I don't want to decide right now," I said. "It's here, and right now, it's enough for me to know it exists."

"I know what you mean," he said, brushing my cheek with a cold, rough hand. He looked up at the sky, trying to estimate the time of day by the position of the pale sun in the sky. "Do you want to go back now?"

"I don't want to leave this place," I said reaching out to touch the apple again. "What if we don't find it again?"

"Have you eaten today?" he asked, wrinkling his brow.

"No," I shrugged. My stomach suddenly growled, as if Edward's question had woken it up.

"You're hungry," he said.

"It's all right."

"You need to eat," he said.

"I don't want to leave here. And I'm not eating that apple. Not until … not until I've let it live some more."

Edward looked a little sheepish. He dug his hands in his jacket pockets, removing a small can of tuna and a can opener. The can opener was unfamiliar, and the brand of tuna was one I'd never seen before.

"Where'd you get these?" I asked. "And how long have you been carrying them around?"

"When I was running to keep from coming back to kill you," he began, "I'd tear through houses, hoping to find something if ever I was strong enough to return to you. A gift. An apology. Whatever I found, I hid in the woods as near to you as I dared go. I guess I kept some stuff my pockets as a promise to myself that I'd find you again. When I'd run in the dark, feeling hopeless, I'd squeeze these in my hands to remind myself there was something worth living for, something worth controlling the predator inside me."

I noticed the can of tuna was sort of squashed in the middle, with an indentation that looked as though a thumb might fit into it.

"So, um," he said, looking at the offering in his hands, "are you hungry?"

I nodded, folding my hands over my stomach.

He spread his jacket out on the grass, and we both took off our shoes and socks. He opened the can for me, cursing a little when he had trouble making the can opener hinge shut on the edge of the can.

"I'm guessing you never had to open cans in your human life."

"Not so much," he mumbled. "Went straight from stuff in butcher paper to pulsing jugulars."

"Don't muscle it," I said, coming nearer to guide his hands. "You'll break the opener. Just line it up and squeeze, like you'd squeeze my hand. You're not trying to crush it to death. The tuna is already dead." I felt the can opener catch, and then I put my hand over his to crank the can open. The smell of canned fish came wafting out, and Edward wrinkled his nose.

"You eat this?" he asked.

"Didn't you ever eat fish when you were human?"

"Sometimes I'd catch fish with my dad, and we'd eat that. This little puck of foulness has no relation to those fresh fish."

I laughed. "There's nothing fish-like about tuna fish. I had tuna steaks once at a fancy restaurant for my birthday, and I still don't think the two are related. Tuna fish is … I don't know. It's its own special category of food-like substances."

Edward pried open the can, possibly to make sure I wouldn't nick myself on the sharp metal. "Dinner is served," he said, flourishing one hand over the open can.

"You didn't happen to pick up any flatware while you went running, did you?" Eating at home, I always used utensils. Somehow eating with a fork or spoon made me feel that I hadn't completely reverted to some feral version of myself. I didn't want to scoop the tuna out with my fingers. I didn't want my fingers smelling like tuna for hours, maybe days. I'd rather deal with the gnawing pain in my stomach than lose this last bit of my once civil life.

Edward looked around, picking up twigs and sticks, weighing them in his hands. Then he took the lid all the way off the can of tuna. His hands were a blur of motion, bending, straightening, scraping the edges along his skin. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he presented me with a tiny spoon he'd fashioned from the lid. "The sides should be smooth," he said, "but you should still be careful. I don't want you to cut your mouth or your tongue."

I took the tiny spoon from him in wonder, turning it this way and that in the pale light. It reminded me of those little wooden spatulas that came with those ice cream cups we'd have at birthday parties. I remembered the taste of the wood on my tongue, the contrast between the warm, rough wood and the cool, sweet, cold ice cream. I tested the spoon out, touching the edges carefully with a fingertip. I was amazed at how smooth the edges were. I touched Edward's hands and made him open his palms. I could see tiny metal shavings in his hands, and I gently blew them away. "Didn't that hurt?" I asked.

"Very little can pierce my skin," he said, closing his eyes when he felt my breath on his palms.

"Thank you," I said, folding my legs under me as I began to eat. It was strange to eat as he watched me, and I felt suddenly naked and exposed as I chewed, even though my mouth was closed. Every swallow felt unbearably intimate, private, and I blushed.

"Are you all right?" he asked. His hands reached for my face, presumably to check for fever.

I waved him off. "Yes, yes, I'm fine." I shoveled more tuna into my mouth, deciding I'd try to get the eating part finished as quickly as possible.

"I like watching you eat," he said as he cocked his head to the side.

I nearly choked mid-bite. "Why?" I felt so disgusting to him.

"It reminds me that you're still alive," he said.

I slowed down my chewing, already less self-conscious. I looked toward the tree, to the one red apple, as I swallowed my bites of processed fish. I could feel his gaze on me, but it was okay now, somehow, just knowing that the sight of me brought him happiness.

I wanted to make him happy. And it was easy. I could do it by being human, doing human things. It was strange and a little sad how much our expectations had changed, how what we needed to be happy had devolved to such basic things. I was happy not to be alone, and he was happy watching me eat from a dented can.

When I'd finished eating, I put the tiny spoon inside the can and set both down on the grass by his jacket. I wanted to kiss him again, as we had under the tree, but I knew my mouth would taste nasty.

"What now?" he asked.

"Will you just … hold me?" I asked. "Can we lie here on your blanket and just pretend we've gone on a picnic? That it's fall, and the apples are ready to be picked, and we're together?"

"We can," he said, lying down.

I curled up inside his arms, and he held me to his chest. I stared at the apple hanging a few trees away, one bright burst of red in the middle of the brown and green and gray, red like the blood that had flowed from me into the donation bag.

I shivered a little in the wind, and Edward said, "I wish I could keep you warm."

"It's okay. I'm not really cold," I lied, and I snuggled more deeply against his chest.

I shifted on his jacket until I was facing him, and I tilted my face up to look in his eyes. "What are you thinking of, little one?" he asked, smoothing my hair back.

_I wish you'd kiss me again_, I thought, but I didn't dare ask him. I looked into his eyes, dark and tinged with red.

"Were your eyes always this color?" I asked.

He turned away, ashamed. "No. They ... are this way because I drank human blood."

My blood.

"What color were they ... I mean, before?"

"I don't remember for sure, but I think they were green, when I was human. We didn't have color photographs then, not that I have any." He was quiet then, sorrowful. "By the time I realized who I was, my family and my home were gone. There was nothing left, no objects to remind me of who I was."

I touched his arm to try to draw him out of his sadness. "And when you became ... what you are, your eyes were always red?"

He shook his head, making sure not to make eye contact with me. "They were golden, amber. They were that way when I fed on only animal."

"I ... made your eyes that way? I'm sorry," I said quietly. "You don't like your red eyes," I said.

"Don't you feel guilty on my account," he sighed. "I know your intentions were good." Finally he looked at me again, and I peered into his dark eyes tinged with red, eyes from a nightmare. But in their place, I imagined other eyes, warm and amber and full of goodness, and then I had to drop my gaze because I felt like my soul was seeping out. My heart beat erratically even remembering that kiss under the willow. He bent his head toward mine and laid a gentle kiss on my forehead. He bent down again, and without thinking, I tilted my face up to his, and we kissed again. He wrapped his arms around me and turned until I was on top of him, and I wondered what we might look like from a plane or a satellite in the sky, two bodies tangled in the tall grasses on a worn coat, with nothing around for miles—perhaps nothing around forever.

***

I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep until I woke up in the darkness. "Edward?" I whispered.

"I'm here, Bella," he said.

"Is this real?"

"I'm not sure," he said, and even though I couldn't see him, I knew he was bending down to kiss me again. I closed my eyes, and we kissed, and he ran his hands up and down my arms, my sides, smiling through his kiss when my heart skipped and trembled.

My eyes fluttered shut, and I had no idea how long we lay there in the dark, kissing and touching, until light began to glow behind my closed eyes.

"Is it morning?" I whispered, eyes still closed.

"Yes."

Another day. "You're real," I said.

"I am," he answered, knowing this was what I needed.

"You came back."

"I did."

"Why are you here?" I asked, my eyes still closed. I was still half-asleep, not even sure how much sleep I'd gotten the night before, everything a half-dream of kissing and wanting.

"Because I couldn't stay away from you," he whispered hoarsely.

"You were going to kill me," I said, stifling a yawn.

"I was."

I snuggled against his chest for a minute, marveling again that I was not waking up alone.

"Open your eyes, Bella," he urged gently.

I let my eyes open, and I gasped as I looked around us. I pushed off of him, pushed myself to sitting, and I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

"Is _this_ real?" I asked.

"I can see it too," he said.

All around us, flowers were in bloom, reds and purples and blues and yellows, an entire meadow of wildflowers. We'd lain down in a monochromatic field but woken up in this explosion of color. Edward reached over, picking one stem of Queen Anne's Lace, brushing the cluster of tiny blossoms across my face, a careful, tender embrace.

"How …?" I couldn't even finish my question.

He shrugged, not stopping the gentle roving of the Queen Anne's Lace.

"How are you still alive?" he asked. "There are so many things I don't understand."

"Is it because of us?" I asked. "Of what we did?"

"What did we do?" he asked, smiling a little.

"I don't know," I said, looking at my knees.

"The world sings for you, Isabella," Edward said, gesturing toward the flowers that seemed to be bowing their heads in greeting.


	17. Languid

**The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Languid**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 17: Languid**

After the night in the field with the apple and the miracle of the wildflowers, I wasn't sure if I were still dreaming. I asked Edward again and again how I knew this was real.

"Does it matter?" he asked, and I wondered if he tried to be enigmatic to infuriate me or if his riddles made some sort of sense to him.

I pinched my arms to see if I were dreaming, to see if I could make myself wake up. Then it occurred to me what an odd thing it was—that pain from pinching would be the litmus test of the reality of a situation. As if you couldn't feel, or at least imagine, physical pain in dreams. I'd had plenty of dreams where I'd been stabbed or choked or even murdered, and I remembered the cold dread that poured over me as if I'd been dumped into a bucket of ice water. What was that called, when you threw vegetables into cold water to stop them from cooking? I hadn't cooked in so long that that part of my brain was rusty. _Blanching_?

Maybe it wasn't so rusty in there after all. Maybe I wouldn't devolve back to some primate. Maybe everything was there, hidden under the surface. Maybe memories were like perennials, not annuals, and they were just sleeping, waiting for conditions to be right again. Maybe like the earth here was just sleeping, waiting for Edward to find me.

_Not dead, just sleeping_.

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking at me when I winced.

"I'm pinching myself," I said.

"Why would you do that?" he asked, and he reached up to stop my hand.

"I want to know if I'm going to wake up," I said. "This is all too beautiful to be real, and I know I'll wake up by myself in the dark, and none of this will have happened, and my dad will be dead in the backyard, and I'll be the only one alive, and I don't think I can handle it."

"Then why would you try to wake yourself up, if that's what's waiting for you on the other side?"

"Because I'd rather know. It's worse when I forget, because I hope. And hope is … cruel. If I could just give up and accept reality, expect nothing, it would be easier. The longer I stay here in this perfect place, the harder it will be to wake up."

"So wake up," he said.

"I'm trying." I scrunched up my face, made fists, held my breath.

Edward laughed at me. "Is it working, Isabella?"

"No," I sighed, opening my eyes.

"Maybe it's not a dream," he said.

"Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"Because it can't be real. It's too beautiful. I'm too happy. You're just making it worse." I hugged my arms around myself against the breeze, watching the flowers wave and bob.

"Let me ask you something, Bella."

"All right," I said, expecting something profound.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

I was too shocked to be embarrassed. I barked out a laugh. "Pardon?" I asked.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" he repeated.

"That's, um, none of your business," I said. "And why are you asking me?"

"I was just thinking, I don't remember having to go to the bathroom in dreams, back when I was human. It was a long time ago, but I remember that there was dream logic, and bathrooms weren't really even part of it."

"They didn't even have indoor plumbing when you were human, did they?"

"God, Bella," Edward said, rolling his eyes. "I'm old, but I'm not _ancient_."

I suddenly got the giggles, and the absurdity of this conversation should have convinced me that I was, indeed, dreaming.

"What's so funny?" he asked, smiling.

"I don't know," I said. "This whole situation is ludicrous."

"All I'm saying," Edward remarked, trying to stay serious, "is that _if_ you have no need to go to the bathroom at all, if you are not hungry or thirsty at all, then maybe you are asleep. But if you feel these mundane needs, then perhaps you are awake after all."

I poked at my stomach, which rumbled loudly.

"Sometimes in my dreams, I can fly," I said.

"Well, fly then," Edward commanded.

I concentrated, trying to make wings sprout of my shoulders.

"How's that working out for you?" he asked after a minute or two.

"It's not working … today," I said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not asleep."

"You didn't have this problem the other day, waking with me."

"That was different," I said. And it was. I was in my house. Charlie's grave was still visible out the kitchen window, the ruined Scrabble board lying as evidence of my desperation the night before.

"Stay with me in this dream, if you still believe it to be a dream," he said, holding his hand out. "Walk with me."

He took a moment to collect his coat from the grass, and our bodies had made an impression in the grass. I watched as the crushed blades uncurled, reaching for the sun, as if the grass were growing right before my eyes like a stop-action film I'd watched in biology class. My dreams would never be this detailed.

His hand was cool in mine, and we walked around what was now a beautiful meadow, fragrant with blossoms. We went back to the apple tree with the one apple hanging low on the branch. "I remember you," I said to the apple.

We walked a little farther, and about a hundred yards from where we had lain on Edward's coat, the flowers stopped. The land was barren again. When I saw the endless fading green in front of me, I began to believe that perhaps I was not dreaming after all. I turned around and looked at the kaleidoscope of color we'd left behind.

"Do you still think you are dreaming, little one?"

"Maybe not," I said.

"Would you like to go back home?"

I thought about it. This was a place of beauty and hope, and part of me never wanted to leave, for fear we might never find this field again. Maybe the minute we stepped off the land, it would revert, that this was only a temporary glimpse, an echo of the past, of our lives before. Maybe we should stay until everything here died as well, so we would see the beauty out to its final place, not wasting one moment of lushness, just in case it never came back. But then again, maybe I didn't want to see anything else die in front of me. Maybe I wanted to preserve this place in my mind, perfect as it was.

"Home," I decided. "But do you think you could find this place again?"

Edward looked at the sky, spread his arms wide, and smelled the air slowly as he turned. He was committing it to memory, plugging it into his vampire GPS or whatever it was. "Yes," he said. "I know. I've let this place leave an imprint in my body. And the color waves from the flowers will be visible from a long distance." He walked to me and plucked several strands of hair from my head.

"Ow! Why did you do that?" I asked, rubbing my scalp.

He wound the hair around and around the branch where the apple hung. "Insurance," he said. "Even if my eyes should fail, even if the flowers should fade, I will be able to find this place again, because it'll be the only other place in the whole world that smells like you."

"Goodbye, apple," I said. "We'll see you again soon."

"Are you ready?" he asked, crouching down so I could hop onto his back. I nodded and climbed on.

The trip back seemed faster than the one there, and I turned as he ran, so I could see all the colors of the field blur, combine, and finally disappear. When I could no longer make out any color, I leaned my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes as he ran. Even as exhilarating as it was, going at such high speeds, feeling the wind on my face, I managed to fall asleep.

"We're here, Bella," Edward said. "You should eat. Maybe you'd like to take a nap after?"

Edward put me on my feet in front of the house, where the door hung cheerily open, waiting for our return. "Hi, house," I said. "I hope you weren't too lonely without me—us."

My legs were a little shaky, so he offered his arm and helped me up the steps into the house. I felt rather as if I'd just been on a long road trip with Charlie, cooped up in the car, feeling tired and hungry and shaky. It was the first time I'd spent a whole night away from the house since our last vacation together.

"_Why are we going to the ocean?" I asked._

"_Just in case," Charlie said. "It's good to see where we came from."_

"_Where we came from? Wasn't I born in Forks?"_

"_I mean life, Bella. Multi-celled organisms. Humanity. Sometimes when things make no sense, it's good to go back to the origins."_

_People had already begun to panic, and most of the shops on the shore were boarded up to stop the looters. Charlie had made sandwiches, which he pulled out of a wrinkled and grease-stained paper grocery bag. We ate as we walked toward the water. The air smelled all wrong. The water seemed turbulent. It wasn't until we walked closer that I realized the waves were filled with dead fish, rolling in the water as the waves lapped onto the shore. Some of the carcasses would remain on the sand, the others swept back into the sea, only to wash up on shore again and again. "Oh," I gasped, unable to finish my sandwich._

"_It wasn't supposed to be this way," said Charlie. He seemed panicked for the first time since this whole thing had begun. "Oh, Bells," he said, holding me to his chest, "this was never supposed to happen, not in our lifetimes." _

_I was not used to seeing Charlie so scared, so vulnerable. "No, Dad," I said. "Don't. Please."_

_He wouldn't let me go, and as he sobbed, I watched the ocean regurgitate the dead fish onto shore and suck them back down, only to do it again and again._

"_Don't cry, Dad," I said. "You're scaring me."_

"_What's going to happen?" he whispered. "I thought Billy was just being paranoid." It was as if he couldn't even hear me. "You're just a kid," he said. "It's not fair."_

"_Dad!" I yelled, pushing him away from me. "I need you to be the strong one! I'm the kid! You're the adult! If you … if you break down, I have nothing. I may as well just walk into the water with all those dead fish."_

_That seemed to make Charlie snap out of it. "No, you won't. I … forbid you to do anything stupid."_

_Normally I'd be pissed off that he was ordering me around as if I were a kid. But right now, I needed a _father_. I wanted to be treated like a child. I wanted to be carried and tucked into bed, and to believe the scariest thing was a friendly monster or two under the bed. _

_We stayed in a hotel that night, even though we could have driven home in an hour or so. "It's our special trip, just like old times, right, Bells?" Charlie had said. _

_At the time it hadn't occurred to me that this might—and would—be our last together away from the house. Within two months, he'd be dead, and I'd be alone. _

_The air conditioning had broken, so we slept with the windows open, the smell of death heavy in the air. The rotting fish odor started making me gag. And as much as I needed the breeze to cool the third-floor room down, I needed to be away from _that smell_. So we closed the windows, opting instead for hot, stagnant air._

_Charlie had paid in cash—the credit card readers were no longer working, or so said the greasy man at reception. I suspected he didn't expect the world to be around much longer, and he just wanted to enjoy the cash while he still could._

_When we went home the next morning, Charlie and I were both artificially cheery, neither of us wanting to upset the other, neither wanting to show the other how hopeless and helpless we felt at this moment. We drove without speaking, and when we got back the house, Charlie steadied me on my feet as he helped me into the house. I leaned heavily into his side as we climbed up the steep stairs._

"_It's going to be okay, kiddo," he said, kissing the top of my head, but it was pretty clear that neither of us believed it._

"Are we going to be okay?" I asked as Edward helped me inside.

"I don't know," he said, and I again appreciated the honesty.

"I'm tired," I announced suddenly. Edward began to move toward the living room couch—our spot. "No," I said. "Come upstairs. Come to my bedroom."

"All right," he said. "If you're sure."

"The couch is crowded—that's all," I said hastily, hoping he wasn't getting the wrong idea. I'd never had a boy in my bed before. I supposed a centenarian vampire wasn't quite a _boy_, but still.

I pulled him into my bedroom. "Take off your shoes," I said as I unlaced my own. I got under the covers and waited. My eyelids were heavy, and I was nearly asleep again before I realized Edward was still just standing there, watching me.

"Get in here," I said, holding the blanket up.

Dutifully he crawled into my bed, wrapping his arms around me, and I never knew my bed could be such a place of comfort. It had been a place of rest for a time, and then a place I dreaded, and now, it was something different, transformed as the field we'd slept in the night before. I felt less that everything was a dream now that we'd returned to the house, although I was so sleepy that my memory of the field of wildflowers was already hazy and fading away.

"It was real," I mumbled as I began to fall asleep in the pale sunlight, stretching languidly like a cat as Edward settled into the bed.

"Of course it was," he said, and every contour of his body fit into mine as we curled into each other beneath my familiar comforter. I pointed my toes and did a slow mermaid-like kick to feel the cool sheets against my skin, trying to match the cool body holding me close and safe, as safe as I could be in this puzzling shell of a world.

**

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A/N: So as you can see, I did not make the deadline. But I will finish this bad boy. **

**In other news, the illustrious Blue Bathrobe and I are offering up a collaboration for Fandom Gives Back! If you think you might be interested in bidding, keep an eye on the website (www dot thefandomgives back dot com), organize a team, and think of story prompt ideas for us! Tell your friends! Spread the word!  
**


	18. Obsession

**The Twilight Twenty-Five That Has Already Ended, Yet I'm Still Trying to Finish: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Obsession**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

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Chapter 18: Obsession**

And so began some of the happiest days of my new life, the life that began after the end of the world. I was no longer alone; Edward was constantly by my side. We didn't always talk, but it was a tremendous gift to have someone to talk to, someone real. No longer did I feel obligated to talk endlessly to inanimate objects; no longer was I afraid that I'd lose speech entirely if I didn't practice. Edward was here to listen, to talk, to sing me to sleep, to shush me when I cried out in dreams.

I liked to think I brought something special to him to, some joy in living. When I would wake up in the morning, he was always gazing at me. "Did you watch me sleep all night?" I asked one morning, after we'd gone through our usual waking ritual, our own _Baltimore Catechism_.

"You're beautiful when you sleep," he said.

"Not when I'm awake?"

"It's different. Your face transforms, and it's like you're enchanted. It's almost like you become someone else."

"Do you want me to be someone else?"

He smiled and shook his head. "No, of course not. It's just that I can see when your face is peaceful, what you might have been like when things were normal."

"You know what?" I said. "Sometimes I wonder if that other life was a dream. Maybe things have always been like this, and I've always been alone. Every day 'normal' seems further away and that much closer to insanity, if I believe it was real."

"What about the photographs and the books?" Edward asked. "You're in the photos, and the people you remember and loved."

"Sometimes I have dreams," I said slowly, "and I wake up missing something so badly, and I know it can't have been real. So maybe these pictures are the same—they make me miss something I've never really known. Maybe these memories were just planted here after the photos." I shrugged.

Edward looked at me with concern. "We have to remember. We have to believe it was real."

"Why?" I asked. "There's no hope left. There's no way to return to that time, if that time were ever real."

"If we forget our dead, we lose all ties to this earth. I know what I know. And my human life, it is hazy and like the memory you describe, an almost-forgotten dream. But I know. I know because of this locket, and the faded photograph inside."

He dug in his pocket and produced a tarnished silver locket. With a sharp fingernail he popped the locket open. "This was my mother."

She was beautiful, and looked quite a bit like Edward. Her hair was done up like a Gibson girl's, and she had a perfect rosebud mouth. "How can you be sure?" I asked, returning the locket after examining the yellowed photograph inside.

He clenched his jaw, and his eyes looked dark and dangerous. "I _have_ to believe. It's a choice. I have to remember where I came from.

"In a way, Bella, what you are experiencing now was a lot like what I went through when I was first transformed. My previous life was gone, and there was no returning. I couldn't remember any of it. It was too easy to believe I'd always been this way, this monster, this murderer. But I decided I would believe in the good, in the past, as painful as it was to remember, knowing I'd lost it forever."

"It just hurts so much," I said, rubbing my hand against my sternum, as if to fill the emptiness inside my chest.

"I know. But I'd rather hurt than pretend it never happened."

I was not like Edward. I'd rather not hurt. It was like when he'd run away from me when we'd first met—it was easier to pretend that I'd imagined it all, that he hadn't existed. But would I forget Charlie? Would I pretend he didn't exist? I thought of his pillow in the room down the hallway. I hardly ever went in there now that Edward was here. It did hurt less now that Edward was here, but the space he filled in my heart wasn't quite the same dimensions as the one that Charlie had left behind. It was like having one puzzle piece left, which almost but did not quite fit the chink like a blight remaining in the mountain landscape or twee basket of puppies.

It would be so easy to pretend my old life had been a dream, those happy, easy times. They'd been imaginary, a fantasy, childish make-believe. It made it more bearable to live in this barren world. I tried to remember what it was like after I realized that Santa Claus didn't exist. Did my world end? Well, not exactly. There was a sadness realizing that magic wasn't real, but I felt even more loved knowing how far my parents had gone in order to bring magic into my life. It was a loss of innocence, but a strengthening of love.

Pretending Charlie had never existed would be entirely selfish on my part. I'd be erasing the love, the sacrifice, the memory of the great man who had been my father. But oh god, it hurt; _I_ hurt every moment I was alive because Charlie was not.

It was then that I realized that the pain of Charlie's absence was sort of a privilege. It meant that I had known this great man, had loved and had been loved by him. I would wear my grief as a badge, grateful for the pain, even if it made it harder every morning to wake up and pretend my life was normal.

"You're right," I finally said. "I guess I'd rather hurt and have it be real." I looked out the window, remembering the days I'd see cars drive slowly past, children running to catch the school bus. "I hate this life. I hate our now."

Edward wrapped his cool fingers around my hand. "All of it? Even me?" he asked.

"Oh, no, Edward, you make it okay to wake up," I said. "I used to live just because Charlie worked so hard to make sure I'd survive. I wanted to die, but I owed it to him. I knew he'd be disappointed, somehow. But there was no joy. I have joy now, at least little slivers of it."

Edward smiled one of his rare, childlike, full smiles, his eyes lighting up. I tipped my face up and basked in the glow I imagined radiating from his eyes. "I'm glad you're happy," he said.

"_Happy_ may be too strong a word," I said. "_Happy_ makes it sound like a more constant, more content state. I don't see how anyone could be happy under these circumstances. But I didn't think I'd ever feel joy again."

***

Day after day I awoke in his arms, and we traveled often to the meadow. I had hoped flowers would begin to bloom everywhere, not just in that field so far from home. But it was only this little place that lived and thrived. When he would bring me to the meadow, I'd seek out our apple, the first apple in a long time. Maybe it was the last apple.

"Are you going to eat it?" Edward asked one day as I cupped it in my hands. The skin had begun to shrivel, and the apple was past its prime.

"Not yet," I said, letting my nose graze across the fragrant skin. "It might be the last one."

As the weeks went by, I noticed that Edward was gradually growing weaker. Getting to the meadow took a bit longer each time. I knew he would need to eat again in the near future, but I didn't know if he'd let me feed him again. I looked at the faded bruise inside the crook of my elbow. How long had it been since that day when he'd nearly killed me? The puncture wounds in my shoulders had long since scabbed over. I tried to remember how often you were allowed to donate blood. Every two months? Had it been that long? I no longer felt lightheaded when I stood up quickly. Surely it would be all right to take out another pint.

The question was, would Edward let me?

We were in the meadow again, and Edward breathed shallowly, worn out from our trip here. The apple was fading and shrinking, its skin puckering, its flesh drying out and becoming soft. An apple from the time before would have long rotted away, been eaten from the inside out by bugs or worms. But there was something entirely sterile about the air here, and the apple itself was a slice of the impossible. It shouldn't have been here, the same way I shouldn't have still been alive.

"You really should eat it," Edward said when he opened his eyes to see me sniffing the apple. "It's not going to be good much longer."

I looked at him, his face gaunt again. "What about you?" I asked.

"I don't eat."

"You know what I mean. You haven't eaten since … that day."

"I'll be fine."

"You _know_ you won't," I insisted. "We already know what happens when you don't eat. I _need_ you to be okay. I don't mind."

"I can't take from you, Bella."

"But you give me so much. You don't even know it." I was practically in tears. "I can't be here without you. You make me want to live. You want me to eat that apple, don't you?"

He nodded.

"Why? Why is it so important to you?"

"Because you haven't eaten anything fresh in so long. I know it'll bring you a moment of pleasure. And it's a waste to let it just rot away on the branch."

"It's a waste?"

"Yes. It's such a rare thing, a miracle."

"You could say the same about me," I said.

"Of course you're a miracle," he said, closing his eyes and draping his arm over his face.

"That's not what I mean. I'm saying that there is no reason I should still be alive. And you're starving. I'm healthy. I'm strong. I have enough for both of us."

"No, Bella, that last time was a mistake. You saw what I did to you, what I almost did to you."

"It's hypocritical for you to expect me to eat the apple if you refuse to let me feed you."

He still protested weakly, but it was his very weakness that made me push him. I needed him alert and strong.

"We can be careful," I said. "I can take the blood out like I did last time, but you'll run far from me before you drink from it. You'll run as far as you can, as long as you can, until you drop from exhaustion. I'll stay here. If you could control yourself when you had me pinned to the ground, you'll be able to stop yourself from coming after me. You won't even be able to smell my scent in the air."

I could tell Edward was trying to think of excuses, but I could also see the hunger taking over.

"I'll eat the apple," I said. "But only if you promise you'll feed."

"I don't like it, Bella," he said.

"You don't have a choice," I said, and I marched over to the tree and twisted the apple off the branch. I had imagined biting into this apple many times, and I'd always seen myself taking time, savoring it, turning the fruit in my hands, smelling every inch of its surface before sinking my teeth into it, piercing the skin, sucking out the juice. Now, though, I was so angry and desperate that I bit into it without ritual or care.

Even so, that bite, that first bite … I had forgotten how good food could taste. Even though the apple was not at its peak, even though I would have turned my nose up at this apple if it had been in the fruit bin at the supermarket in the time before, it was the most amazing thing I had ever eaten. I became like an animal, devouring the fruit, even down to the seeds. _Apple seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide_, I thought, but I didn't care. I could not waste any part of this miracle.

The rest of the world disappeared, and all that existed was me and this apple, which tasted like it had somehow managed to transform the pale and ineffectual sunlight into pure sweetness. I ate until nothing was left but the withered stem. My chin was sticky with juice.

"Now, will you?" I asked, flinging the stem to the ground.

"I never agreed," Edward said.

I sank to my knees. I'd lost the apple, and Edward still would not feed. I would be left with nothing. "But you must," I wept. "You must. I need you here. Please."

"Bella," began Edward.

"_Please_," I whispered. "You're all I have left."

Neither of us spoke as the sun made its lazy journey across the sky.

"All right," he answered finally.

***

This time, it worked, just as we'd planned. I went back to the clinic to get supplies and to draw the blood on my own. It was easier since I knew what to expect. Edward looked ashamed as I handed him the bag. I liked to think that part of that apple was now in the blood, that Edward would get to taste the last apple too.

"I don't like this," he said as he buttoned his jacket.

"You don't have to," I said. "Just do it."

"Stay in the house, Bella," he said, kissing the top of my head. "I don't know when I'll be back. I don't know how long it will take for me to be safe."

"I need you strong. I'll wait for you forever. Just promise to come back."

"I can't. I don't know what will happen."

"Just promise, even if you don't mean it."

"I promise I'll be back."

"Thank you," I said, and I pushed him roughly out the door. He took off running, his head down, his shoulders hunched, and I watched, clutching the doorknob, until he was a point on the horizon.

In one blink, he was gone, but I stood staring out the door until my legs began to shake from fatigue and my stomach twisted in knots from hunger. I tapped the bandage on my arm, feeling slightly comforted that part of me traveled with him wherever he went, like the faded photograph of his mother's face in his pocket.


	19. Morose

**The Completely Overdue and Probably No Longer Relevant Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Morose**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

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Chapter 19: Morose**

A week. It had been a week since Edward had disappeared on the horizon, clutching a bag filled with my blood. He hadn't come back. I didn't normally keep track of the days, but this seemed important. With each faint sunrise, I scratched another mark into the wall by my closet door with the edge of a butter knife. Every morning I would say, "You're real," but Edward would not answer me. I'd say, "You came back," but he wasn't here. I'd say, "Why are you here?" but he wasn't. I'd say, "You were going to kill me," and I would see again the image of him running away from me to stop himself from doing it.

It was hard to find the motivation to wake up these days. Asleep, I'd forget. I could almost pretend he was still here, but when I woke, my bed was always empty. I didn't want to be in there without Edward. I couldn't bear to go sleep in Charlie's bed. And sleeping downstairs on the sofa seemed like going backwards in time, but in a bad way. When I woke up, I knew there would be no trips to the meadow, the one piece of land where things were living. I would have no one to talk to.

Sometimes I'd idly pick up the gun on my desk, feeling its heft in my hand. I would place the muzzle against my stomach, against my temple, under my chin, in my mouth, with the automatic, light touch as if I were crossing myself with holy water. I wondered if I'd ever have the courage to squeeze the trigger. _If I knew it wouldn't hurt_, I thought, _maybe, someday_.

I looked at the bruise on my arm. I guessed it didn't matter how careful I was, or how swift with the needle—I'd always bruise. _He was real_, I thought, and I pushed on the marked skin until I winced in pain. It was strange how eager I was to feel the pain that reminded me of him, yet how scared I was of the pain that would … free me. Maybe the difference was that one kind of pain helped sustain life; the other only ended it.

I wondered what was happening in our meadow. I thought of the strands of my long hair wound around the branch, like the willow frond I'd used to bind ourselves to each other. Plant matter had bound warm flesh to cold, and my keratin bound us to that meadow, wrapped again and again around the branch where the miracle had occurred. But I had eaten the apple, and I didn't know if there would ever be another.

I didn't go on my walks. My whole routine had been thrown to shit. If I couldn't go to the meadow, I didn't want to leave the house—what if Edward came back? I tried to write out a schedule to fill up my days, broken down into tiny units of time. I had no working watch, and I no longer had a sense of minutes and hours aside from the steady ticking of my heart, but I gave myself small tasks to do in and around the house. Aside from the activities I had to do every day in order to survive, I added on mundane tasks like:

_Dust bookshelves._

_Sort books (by color, author, or size, depending on the day)._

_Take inventory of cans of food._

_Check on water levels in rain barrels._

_Memorize one Shakespearean sonnet._

_Recite yesterday's sonnet in backyard to Charlie._

The only sure way I knew of time's passing, beside the slow journey of the sun across the sky, was my stomach. My body had grown used to food at set times, and my day was punctuated by my stomach's growls and complaints. Everything reminded me of Edward, but especially when I felt the pangs of hunger. I wondered if this was what he felt all the time, how hard it must have been for him not to kill me, especially as I slept in his arms, helpless, immobile.

How far had he run before he'd dropped from exhaustion? How far until he felt safe enough to drink the gift of my blood? And how long until he felt strong enough not to come back to finish the job?

Eight days. Nine days. Ten days. Ten tick marks scratched in the wall, and still no Edward. If my books would talk, they would have complained about their constant shuffling and reorganization. "Not again," I'd imagine them groaning. "I was just getting comfortable."

I wasn't sure why my books sounded like cranky elderly people in my head.

I stood outside as my schedule dictated, declaiming Shakespeare's Ninth Sonnet to Charlie's grave:

_Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,  
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?  
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,  
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,  
The world will be thy widow and still weep,  
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,  
When every private widow well may keep,  
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:  
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend  
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;  
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,  
And kept unused the user so destroys it:  
No love toward others in that bosom sits  
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits._

"You didn't do that, Dad," I said. "I'm here, and proof that you existed, and your living memory to the world's widow." I, on the other hand … there would be no one after me. But there wouldn't be anyone to mourn, either. It's not as if it were a choice for me not to marry and have kids. I wondered if I even could have kids—even if Edward came back, and wanted to be with me in that way, and would agree to it, and not accidentally kill me during the act … we were two different species. He wasn't exactly alive. And it all was moot anyway, since I hadn't had my period ever since the disease had come. Maybe that's all the virus did to me: make me sterile. What a cruel joke—to be allowed to survive, only to know that I could never create or continue life. That with me would die my entire race. My stomach growled, and I imagined for a moment that it was my womb, grieving that it would forever be empty. It was like the trees and plants—nothing grew; nothing bloomed; nothing reproduced. This world was dead, but for that one apple, and I'd consumed it so Edward would consume me.

_Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye_ … that line hit me hard, though. I feared I'd wasted my life, thinking, as all teenagers seemed to, that I was invincible, that we would never die. Why did I live such a quiet life, only to spend the rest of my days in utter solitude? If I'd have known how things would have ended, would I have spent so many Saturday nights at home? At the same time, it seemed awfully petty and myopic to think that Shakespeare's message to go forth and multiply would be commentary on my lack of social life. Would it have been better to have been a cliché, a pregnant teenager? Because at least I'd be leaving someone behind?

I hated when I got into this circular patterns of thought, like a plane waiting for clearance to land. What if? What if? If I'd done A, would B have happened? _My actions do not control the world_, I said, trying to stop the cycle of my thoughts, the endless spiral of blame and regret and second-guessing.

"Dad," I said, "I don't know if Edward is going to come back. But I had to do what I did, right? I had to try to keep him alive, even if it meant not seeing him again?"

Not even the wind blew in response, and I felt truly alone. I couldn't even pretend that Charlie was speaking to me in signs from wherever he was. Maybe there was nothing after this life, just emptiness, a vacuum from which even light could not escape.

I shuffled back into the house, up the stairs, and opened the door to Charlie's room. I had such a strange longing to see his handwriting again, to see the papers and scraps where he'd pressed a pen and put thought to ink. I knew he had a shoebox of letters in his closet—he'd carefully put my handmade birthday cards in there. I hoped there might be letters and cards from other people as well. Even if they weren't in his hand, they were like fishscales that together made up the iridescent portrait of his life, each a pixel that would make up the imprint of his life on this earth.

There were several shoeboxes in the closet, and I knew right away which ones were filled with letters and memorabilia—they were tied with twine and bulging against the seams. I pulled them all down from the shelves and sat on the floor of his room, opening box and box, not bothering to keep track of which letter went where. I could have been more careful, like an archivist in a rare books and manuscripts library, but I was too alone and too desperate to feel the voices of other people. I leafed through my clumsily made birthday cards with atrocious handwriting and botched scissor and glue jobs. I found a letter or two from my mom, telling him what I'd been up to at school. There were a few Christmas letters from extended members of the Swan family, all of them strangely alike in the way that holiday letters tended to be.

And then I found a leather-bound notebook with the mark of the Quileute tribe. Why would Charlie have had this? I flipped open to the first page and recognized Billy Black's handwriting, the pen pressed so deeply into the page that it was like Braille on the other side. I could just picture Billy's thick hand gripping a pen so tightly that his fingernails would turn white as he pressed and wrote.

_Findings_, the first page said, and I vaguely remembered that word thrown around when Billy would be at the house, talking in hushed tones in the kitchen while Jake and I horsed around in the living room. Even though I didn't think I'd been paying attention at the time, snatches of conversation came back to me.

"_You don't believe all that, do you?" Charlie said._

"_We've read the stars. This is what we know. Something bad is coming."_

_Charlie laughed. "There's always a Doomsday theory floating around—Nostradamus, the year 2012, all the Y2K scares. It's never anything."_

"_This is different," Billy had said, smacking something on the table. "This is what we've seen in the skies, what has come to us in dreams. We've been collecting data for a while. I wanted you to have this, to read over what we've seen. Just so you can make informed decisions. I know you trust us and know us and might take us seriously. No one else not of our people would care to listen."_

"_All right, Billy," my dad had said, even though he didn't sound sure. He was too good of a friend to laugh outright. "I'll take a look."_

"_Are you ready for what's coming?"_

He hadn't said, "What might come." He'd known. And what he had known was all in the pages of this book.

I began to turn the pages, looking at the drawings, photographs taped onto pages, diagrams of the sky. I couldn't understand everything that was here. _"We have tried to follow every possible path, to see if we can alter the outcome, but there doesn't seem to be a way out. But we will not give up hope, because that is not our way."_

I left the mess on the floor of Charlie's room and clutched the journal to my chest. I walked like a zombie down the stairs, feeling tugged by something deep within my stomach.

It did not surprise me, then, to find Edward standing at the front door, looking tired and worn and as if he hadn't slept in days. _He hasn't slept in years_, I corrected myself.

"I've come back," he said as I stared at him, afraid that if I breathed, he would disappear, that only my stillness and concentration kept his molecules together.

I nodded, barely moving my head, trying to keep his particles from breaking apart.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me tightly, and I could feel the edges of the journal pressing against my chest, four harsh right angles pushing against my beating heart.

**

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A/N: So, hey, sorry not much happened in this chapter. This chapter is like being at the top of the Ferris wheel, where you hang for just a moment in the night air before swinging down again. We're beginning our dip downward to the end of this fun romp through the apocalypse. **


	20. Lithe

**The I-Can't-Believe-You're-Still-Reading-This-So-Far-Past-the-Deadline Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Lithe**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 20: Lithe**

"You're here, you're here, you're here," I repeated like a heartbeat against his chest, taking in the smell of him through his dust-ridden clothes.

He cautiously wrapped his arms around me, drawing me closer. "I'm back," he said. "I'm sorry it took so long … I wanted to make sure I was safe to be around you. I found that the more I taste of your blood, the worse the frenzy grows, and I would die before I hurt you again."

"Where did you go?" I asked, lowering my hands so Billy Black's journal wasn't crushing me.

"I ran and kept running," he said. "I ran back the way I'd first come here, retracing my path to where my family had lived. Maybe I shouldn't have gone back." He pulled away from me, and not only physically. I could feel him turn inside himself, hiding in a tiny corner of his mind.

"You went all the way … home?" As I spoke, I was worried that _home_ wasn't the right word to use, and from the pain I saw in his eyes as he withdrew further I knew I had chosen my words poorly.

Edward sighed. "Yes. I ran until I couldn't run another step, until my legs felt like jelly and my lungs burned. I didn't expect to go back. I never planned for it, but that's where my feet wanted to go."

"Was there anything there?" I reached out to hold his hand. He let me take it, but it was like dead weight on my palm, a corpse hand.

"Just the house we'd lived in, a shell, like this one. I shouldn't have gone back. I don't know why I went. I don't know why my body betrayed me like that."

"I'm so sorry," I said, squeezing his hand. "I missed you," I offered, suddenly feeling ghostly traces of the cold steel of the gun grazing my skin.

"I'm not sorry," he said. "I'm not sorry if it kept you safe." He kissed the top of my head, and it wasn't until I felt his cool, dry lips on my skin that I truly let myself feel the chasm Edward's absence had created inside me.

I crumpled into a ball at his feet and wept hysterically, rocking a little. The pain was just too much. I hadn't realized how much I'd suppressed while he was gone. It had been unbearable as it was, but this? My previous pain was only a shadow of what I felt now, an acorn of grief next to a centuries-old oak tree.

"Hush," Edward said, scooping me up in his arms. "I'm here. You're going to be okay."

He just let me cry as I curled into a tight ball, my limbs wrapped around myself, as if they were trying to keep my heart from breaking apart. "You know I had to leave, right? These were your terms."

"I know," I mumbled. "That's not why I'm crying."

"Then why?"

How could I explain the ache in my chest? "I guess I didn't let myself miss you, _really_ miss you, until you were back. Until it was safe to miss you, because you'd be right here. So just … let me mourn while you hold me, so my heart can fill up again as I finally let it drain out."

"As long as you need," he said, holding me tighter.

So we sat until my heart ached no more. He rocked me and hummed in my ear, and I let myself weep until I thought surely I'd dissolved into a puddle of tears. And then came a point where I didn't feel much of anything anymore, just a comforting kind of numbness. "I'm okay now," I said, feeling sheepish.

He made no move to disentangle himself from me, so I closed my eyes and focused on the feeling of being cradled in his arms. I felt like a small child, protected. If I concentrated on my breathing and his lips on my hair, I could pretend that life was normal and we had a future. When reality began creeping back through the cracks in my mind, I sighed and pulled back a little.

"Tell me more about going away," I said. "I mean, if it doesn't hurt too much. I want to know what you were doing."

"I told you, I ran until I dropped, and I had returned to my last … home." He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "Bella, I've never smelled the air so empty of life. It frightened me. I held the bag of your blood close to me. I was starving, but I didn't want to lose what part of you I still had, not just yet."

"How long did you wait?" I asked, touching my hand to his cheek. He must have been starving, but even more lonely to be able to hold off.

"I don't know. A few days. I lay on my back in the bed where had Alice died and let the bag sit on my chest, and I tried to picture your face etched on the ceiling, smiling down at me and telling me everything would be all right."

Suddenly I envied him, that at least he had my blood as a tangible reminder of me. I had nothing but my questionable memories. "How did you decide when it was time?" I asked.

Edward looked ashamed. He didn't look at me, his voice barely above a whisper. "When I couldn't think anymore. When the smell of you somehow slipping through the spaces between the molecules of the plastic bag grew too much for me to resist. When I stopped being a person with a conscience and turned into a monster focused only on survival. I don't remember much, just how good it tasted, even if it wasn't fresh. So … good."

His eyes lost focus for a moment, and then he shoved me off his lap. I yelped as I landed hard on my elbow.

"I'm sorry," he said, righting me. "I was afraid I'd … do something awful. Even the memory of your blood changes who I am. Or breaks down the fake, human-like creature I've fooled myself into believing I am."

I just looked at him, rubbing my elbow.

"And now I've hurt you anyway," he said, reaching a finger out to touch my elbow, but pulling back at the last moment. "I really shouldn't be here. I'm not safe."

"No! You promised. You promised you wouldn't leave. It'll be okay. We don't have to talk about where you went or what you tasted," I bargained. "Just … don't leave me. I don't care what you are. I don't care if you kill me. Just don't leave me alone, except … except for when you _have_ to. You know, when you need to leave to stay alive and strong."

He nodded, but his jaw was tight.

"When did you know you were strong enough to come back?" I asked, hoping that I wouldn't make him lose himself again.

He shrugged. "I don't know how long it took. I just know when I became aware of my thoughts again."

"You were gone for ten days," I said.

"Was I? It didn't feel like ten days."

"It was like ten lifetimes," I said.

"I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "No, I should stop talking about it. I asked you to leave. I begged you to go. You were only trying to do what I wanted." I reached my hands toward him again, and this time he took them, squeezing gently. "You didn't even want to go."

"I didn't want to leave you, but I didn't want to put you in danger more," he said.

"But now we know, right? We know we can do this. You didn't hurt me, and you're strong again, aren't you?" I brought one of his cool hands to my cheek, which was still a little wet from crying.

"Strong enough, I suppose."

I brightened, thinking of our possible future. "So we can do this, every couple of months, when you start feeling weak. Now we know what to expect. I can have you with me, and I can have you strong. I won't mind if you go away for ten days, now that I know you'll come back."

Edward sighed. "I still don't know about this, Bella. We're not predictable creatures. Maybe I'll mess up next time."

I glared at him, and he struggled not to smile. "Fine," he said. "I suppose we can say the experiment was somewhat of a success."

Now that we were calm, still sitting on the floor of the foyer, Edward noticed the journal in the space between us. "What's that?"

I told him about missing Charlie and needing some physical evidence that he'd really existed, and finding the journal among his letters and things. "I don't really understand much of it," I said, flipping open to some of the drawings. "I never took astronomy—I mean, do high schools even offer that?"

Edward took the journal from my hands and hunched over, studying the pages with a troubled expression. "These sketches … they're familiar. I recognize the stars. I don't know how to read them. Carlisle would have known." He looked lost again for a moment, his eyes darting rapidly from one place to another, his hands twitching so quickly that they were a blur of hummingbird's wings.

"What is it?" I asked, afraid to still his hands.

"Carlisle … I can't remember. He was already so sick when he realized something was terribly wrong with the world. He'd lie outside all night and study the stars. He'd babble some things, but he was so delirious at the end. If I could just remember …"

"Let's not think of that anymore," I said. "Maybe it's important. Maybe it isn't. But I know that you're here now, and that my life stopped when you weren't here, and I just need to feel you by my side."

Even though it was still light out, I pulled Edward behind me and up the stairs. "I haven't slept well since you've left," I said. "I'm exhausted. Will you lie with me?"

He carefully removed his shoes in response. I pulled back the covers and got in, my eyelids already heavy. With a creaking of the mattress coils, Edward climbed in behind me and held me, wrapping his long arms around me like vines. Even though he was cool to the touch, I felt a warm glow in my belly that radiated outward. I wondered if Edward could see it.

* * *

When I woke, it was dark. "Edward?" I whispered.

"I'm here. I'll always be here," he said.

"Except when you're not," I added.

"Yes, except for then. But I'd never leave you while you slept."

"How long was I out?" I asked, sitting up slowly.

I couldn't see him, no matter how long I tried to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. There was no light coming from anywhere.

"Time didn't mean much to me before, and it means even less now," he said, leaning his chin on my shoulder. "But it was a while. You slept like the dead."

I had the strangest image of me lying like the Lady of Shalott in her boat, floating toward Camelot as her blood slowly froze and stopped flowing altogether. I shivered. "Can we go to the meadow?" I asked, needing to be surrounded by life.

"Now?" I tried to imagine the puzzled look on his face in the dark.

"Yes, please," I said. "I … I don't want to be here right now."

He took me by the hand and led me through the house, even though I knew the layout in the dark as well as during the day. The house was as familiar as my own skin. "Can you see?" I asked.

"Your light glows all the time," he said.

We gathered a blanket and food. I crammed everything into my tattered backpack as Edward went outside to fill a few empty bottles with the rainwater in the barrel. Edward helped me find my sweatshirt.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, hoisting the backpack straps onto my arms. "I'll carry the bag so you can carry me."

We hadn't made the trip at night before, and I was a little afraid as he ran in the complete darkness. It was like how roller coasters were twice as scary if you closed your eyes, because you couldn't tell where you were going. Still, at the same time it was exhilarating, my heart pounding, speeding, singing.

"Will you be able to find your way, even in the dark?" I asked, my voice unnaturally shaky from being jostled by his steps.

"I can find your scent," he said. "And I can see. We're nearly there now."

Before I knew it, he'd stopped and was lowering me gently back onto my feet. My teeth were chattering; he'd been running so fast that the cooler night air chilled me. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just give me a moment." I jumped up and down a few times to try to warm up. I heard low laughter. "What's so funny?" I demanded.

"I wish you could see what I see," he said. "You glowing and bouncing … I'm reminded of my sister Alice's collection of lava lamps."

I ignored him, unzipping the bag and spreading out the blanket. "Is this where we slept that first night?"

Though I couldn't see him, I could feel the air around me move as he took in the surroundings. "I think so," he said.

"Good." I took off my shoes and felt around until I was on the blanket. "Join me?" I asked.

I looked up at the sky, or at least, I looked up where I knew the sky was, though I could not see anything. I thought of Edward's father Carlisle and wondered if he had ever done what we were doing right now. I wondered what he'd seen.

"Edward," I said, "I don't really remember the stars. I mean, I remember that they were up there, but all I could ever find was Orion. Jake—he was my friend—tried to teach me, but I didn't have time. I wish I'd listened to him better." _About so many things_, I thought, berating myself.

I felt Edward's hand around mine. To my surprise, he nudged my hand into a pointing position, covered with his own. It was like our hands were spooning. He raised our hands up to the sky. "There," he pointed with our hands, "was where the North Star used to be." He waved our hands on a controlled path, invisible to my eye. "And this was where the Big Dipper was." Another squiggle in the air. "And the Little Dipper." He reached out farther into the night. "Cassiopeia in her chair. As punishment, the gods put her upside down for half of the year."

"Would she be upside down now?" I asked.

"I don't know what time it is. We don't really have seasons anymore, do we?"

I wasn't tired after my long sleep, so for hours, until the sky began to lighten so slowly that I thought I had only imagined the change, Edward traced out constellations with our hands joined. My shoulders ached from being held up for so long, but I didn't care. It was as if we were skaters skimming on the smooth ice of a frozen pond, one perfectly mirroring the other.

Eventually it was light enough to see his face. His eyes, even through a demonic shade of red, shone with something like love and care.

"Thank you for giving me the stars," I said. I knew it wasn't our morning ritual, but I hadn't slept, so it seemed not to matter if we did not repeat the familiar words; we'd already broken the pattern. I sat up slowly, nervous about what I'd find in our meadow, worried that it had changed or died since the last time we'd been here.

I looked toward the tree where the apple had been, but the branches were once again bare, the limbs twisted in angry acute angles. Only white flowers remained in the grass. The others had disappeared, or died, or perhaps all the colors had just faded to white. "What happened?" I breathed.

"I don't understand this meadow. Wait a moment," he said, putting his finger to my lips. "Close your eyes," he said. "I want to try something."

I closed them as instructed, plunged back into darkness, and his lips were on mine, kissing me gently, then more urgently, until he lowered me to the ground, bracing the bulk of his weight on his elbows as we kissed and became a tangle of limbs and fingers grasping hair. The world disappeared until all that existed was Edward, hovering over me like an angel. I started gasping for breath, and he became still.

"Why … stop?" I asked, breathing raggedly between words.

"Your heart … it was going so fast, I didn't think it could be good for you," he said. Then he said, "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Look." And he nudged my head carefully to the side with his hand. Where just moments before there had been only tiny white flowers, one red poppy stood, proudly displaying its petals at the sun.

"It happened again," I said. I wondered to myself what would happen if we ever did more than kissing, and although I knew he could not hear my thoughts, I was sure he could hear my heart racing.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, a smile curling around his lips.

"Nothing," I shrugged.

"It's not nothing," he insisted.

"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" My voice reached an embarrassingly high pitch.

He stopped pressing for answers, just stared at me and grinned like an idiot.

"Shut up," I said.

"I didn't say anything," he said, looking the picture of innocence, though I knew better.

"Doesn't matter."

We sat for a while, his fingers playing with mine, and I wondered if my heart glowed anything like the red poppy by our side, defiantly growing in the field of white flowers.


	21. Taut

**The Yes-I-Will-Finish-This-Doggone-Story-Even-Though-I'd-Get-a-Zero-for-Lateness-If-This-Were-a-School-Assignment Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Taut**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 21: Taut**

"Why is this happening?" I asked, looking at the scarlet flower. Did red signify _life_, or did it signify _sin_? Or were the two not mutually exclusive?

He shrugged. "Something happens between you and me."

"Why us? Does it matter that it's us? Would it happen to other people, if they were the last ones?"

"I can't answer your questions, because there is no one else. None of this makes sense to me, Bella. I'm generally a creature of reason and logic, but my very existence defies that, as does yours."

"I don't understand," I said, folding my arms around me.

"I'm a mythical creature, or at least I should be—something that should exist only in stories and nightmares. And you, you should have died out with the rest of your race. We are both anomalies. We shouldn't be here. So why question the logic of why our kissing makes the flowers grow? It's fantasy enough that we are both here, alive, at all."

His nonsense actually made a lot of sense, but I still rested my head on my knees, considering.

"What's wrong?" he asked, after I hadn't spoken for some time.

"I just wish we had answers once in a while. Real answers. Not crazy suppositions and everything being so weird, so wrong, that I may as well be crazy. I _feel_ crazy. Am I crazy, Edward?"

He gently grabbed both of my arms, slowly sliding his hands down over the thick fabric until he was holding my chilled hands. "You are not crazy, little one. The world is crazy. But somehow it led me back to you, so maybe it is a merciful kind of crazy."

I laughed darkly. "Is there such a thing?"

Edward dropped my hands and spread his arms wide. "Here, in this space, you ask me if such things are possible? Look around. I can't explain it, but I'll accept it."

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"Today, you mean?"

"I mean, forever."

"Do we have to decide right now?" he asked. "Can't we just live in the moment?"

"Honestly, 'live in the moment'? Jesus, Edward, I've been living in the same frozen moment since I watched my father die. Every day was the same until you came back—I don't even know if I should say 'back' since I can't even be certain that you existed in the first place—and now you come and go like a wild animal, flowers appear and disappear, I don't know if I dreamed you up, I don't know why I'm still alive, I don't know why I was spared. Am I blessed? Or is this some kind of punishment? And if I'm being punished, what could I possibly have done that was so wrong, that I deserved _this_?" My voice kept rising steadily until it was a piercing shriek in the silence of the meadow, and I started to weep hysterically. Most of the time my mind seemed to shield me from the enormity of everything that had happened over the last year or so, but every now and again I'd get a flash in my brain, a snapshot of the tininess of me against the whole of time and space, and I'd wonder why, why, why I was chosen to be the one left behind.

"I'm real," was all he said, but he didn't touch me. Maybe he was afraid I'd find out he was just a ghost. Or maybe he was afraid I'd break.

"If I made you up, of course you would lie to me. Why would you admit that you weren't real? If you say you're not real, wouldn't you disappear?"

He reached for the bottom of my sweatshirt and began pulling it off. I became a child again, raising my arms to be undressed, even as I continued to sniffle. Once he'd pulled my sweatshirt off, sending small wisps of hair undulating like anemone from the static, he hooked his finger inside the collar of my shirt and tugged gently, exposing first one shoulder, then the other. He touched the faded puncture wounds he'd made there the first time I'd tried to make him feed. "I'm real," he said again, tracing the scar with a cool finger. "I did that to you." He placed his hand over my heart. "You can't see the scars inside, but I made those too."

I closed my eyes, letting the tears spill down my cheeks, hot streaks against the cool air.

"I'm real," he repeated. "Only real things can hurt you like this, leave these kinds of scars."

"Okay," I said, and I gasped when he leaned in and kissed the scars on my shoulders, first one, then the other.

"I'm real, and I am so sorry."

My heart whirred so fast that it must have sounded like hummingbird's wings to his ears. I missed hummingbirds, but at the same time I was glad for them that they were gone. What kind of life was it, to beat your wings so quickly that you had to eat constantly? Every moment was exhausting, and only about survival. It didn't seem to far from my life now, except mine was the slow-motion version, where all I did was eat and sleep and wake and wait. It was all just waiting, wasn't it? Someday, my food would run out. Charlie had stockpiled as much as he could, but food now was a nonrenewable resource. There had been the one apple, but that was it. Nothing new—well, at least edible—had grown since.

"I love listening to your heart," Edward said, interrupting my dark, spiraling thoughts.

"Oh?" I said.

"It changes. It speaks to me. I can't read your mind, but sometimes your heart tells me anyway."

"Such a traitor," I muttered. "What does it tell you?"

"It tells me that when I do this," and here he kissed my bare shoulders again, "you can hardly breathe."

"How—?" I couldn't finish my thought.

"Your heart stutters and skips and sounds like a frightened bird." He pressed his ear against my chest. "But I won't hurt you again. You're safe, little bird."

"My heart doesn't believe you," I said, raggedly breathing. It felt as though my heart were reaching out for him, pushing up against his ear with each beat, not the other way around.

"I would keep time by your heartbeat until the end of the world," he said, leaning and listening.

"Maybe not so far off," I murmured, looking up at the pale sky. "How much time do you think is left, Edward?"

He pulled away from me, and my chest ached, missing the pressure of his touch. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind. "We don't know anything. As far as we know, it could still be millennia away. Long beyond a human lifespan."

"My lifespan," I said quietly.

"What would you rather? Would you want everything to stop, to be here at the end of time?"

I ran my fingers through my hair. "I don't know; God, I don't _know_," I said. "If someone had asked me before you appeared, I would have said the end couldn't come soon enough. And even with you here, I think of the future—and it almost makes me laugh, because … what future? What future could we possibly have? I guess I just wish we could go back to normal life. I wish I'd died with everyone else. I don't want to be special. I wish I'd never known this life."

"Not even me?"

I was going to say something snappish, but he looked so sad, and I remembered how he'd asked me to live for him, how he'd come back when I was ready to give up everything. "I wish I'd known you before this all had happened. Maybe we could have had some kind of life together."

He clutched my face in his hands and said, "No, don't you see? The only way we could be together is like this, with us the only two left. I don't know how it happened or why, but it's the only way … I would have been too afraid to kill you otherwise. I never would have come back if I thought you were alive. And I'm not sorry. Despite everything, despite how much I miss my family, I am not sorry."

I let my hands rest on his. "But I am," I said. "You make me want to live _now_, but if I could trade it … to be with Charlie, to wake up unafraid …" I shook my head. "I would never choose this."

"Even if this was the only way we'd be together?"

I looked into Edward's face. It had gone completely still, no emotion discernible in his features. The only thing that gave it away was his mouth, lips pressed together in a taut line.

"Edward," I said, touching my finger to his lips, trying to get them to relax. It troubled me to see him so unhappy. But I still couldn't lie. "How could you imagine I'd ever willingly choose this life?"

He wouldn't look me in the eye. "I was foolish to think I would be as important to you as you are to me."

"It doesn't matter," I said as kindly as I could. "You are the reason I want to live. The choice isn't mine. I can't trade you in for my old life. I can't undo the disease. So it's silly to try to say what I would or wouldn't do. It's pointless. You are here, and I am here, and there is nothing—no one—else. I don't have the power to change anything. And if I had to be here with one other person, I'm glad it's you."

Maybe it would have been easier to say that he made it worthwhile, but I would not lie to him. I'd lost too much to lie. It disrespected the memory of Charlie, of everyone else I'd loved. I couldn't pretend that I wouldn't trade it all back if I could get my old life back, the one I'd found monotonous and safe. At least back then, I'd had the future to dream about. Anything could happen, then. But now?

"Kiss me," Edward interrupted me.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we are the only ones left, and we don't know what tomorrow will bring, and I know at least that when we kiss, your heart is happy."

I hesitated. "If I weren't the last, would you feel this way? Would you want to kiss me?"

"Always."

I wanted to argue with him, convinced he was just hungry and desperate and lonely, but then I realized I was just robbing myself of the small joys remaining in the world. _Why not? Why fight it? Why look for logic or reason?_ _Just feel_, I told myself.

And so I reached for him, pulled him to me, and kissed him with everything I had left in me, with as little cynicism as possible. I tried to make my mind blank, my heart pure. I thought of nothing but him as he lowered me slowly to the blanket. He traced my faded wounds again, murmuring apologies against my skin. I let everything go, and I went to a different place. I could feel the earth spin and hurtle through the galaxy, and I felt something like ecstasy, white-hot joy in my chest. It prickled through me like pins and needles, and when I opened my eyes again, I was different. I was someone else.

I was someone who hoped.

"I was wrong," I said.

"What do you mean?"

I looked at him with my new eyes. "I would choose you. I would choose this."

I let him rest his head on my chest as my heart beat secrets against his ear. I looked up into the sky, at the pale sun.

_The sun is a star_, I suddenly remembered. _It's the only one left, like Edward and me. Me, Edward, and the sun. We are the last._

In that moment, I didn't think to question why the sun was still here, or what would happen if it were blown out like the last candle on a birthday cake. I didn't think to wonder whose wish would be granted as the last light in the heavens was snuffed out, leaving us in darkness.


	22. Earnest

**The My-God-Is-She-Really-Still-Trying-To-Finish-This? Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Earnest**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

* * *

Chapter 22: Earnest**

When I chose to stop thinking, to stop analyzing, when hope filled my breast and I decided just to enjoy the gift the universe had given me, my life glimmered again, a lone candle in a blackout. Did it matter that the tiny flame couldn't beat back the darkness? Wasn't it enough that the fire existed at all, against all odds? If I were small enough, a candle flame could be an entire universe to me. And I would try my hardest to let it. I willed myself to be as small, smaller, than the wick, surrounded on all sides by fire, slowly consumed, but this was my purpose: to be consumed.

To live in the moment and to treasure every second meant shutting off my mind a lot of the time, which I felt was somehow a betrayal to me, my past life, and everyone I loved who was now gone. But I was determined to be happy, as happy as I could be in this desiccated shell of world, so like the beetle, long dead, trapped between the windowpane and the screen of the window in my bedroom. Maybe everything in the world that had happened so far was really so I could be with Edward now. This was the only way, as he'd said. He never would have come back otherwise. And in his weakened state, he was less likely to harm me.

In a way, it was like a reversal of what I'd done when I'd first met Edward, when he'd seemed to have hated me on sight and run away. To be able to go on, I'd had to rebuild my memories, erase the past, pretend that first day of school had never happened. Now I tried to pretend all the parts of my life without Edward had been the dream. Maybe _this_ was the real world, the world that had been created just for me, just for him, just for us. It would be enough. I was happy, when I could forget Bella Swan, daughter of Charlie Swan, who used to live in a world with flowering trees, animals, and billions of people living their banal lives.

We built a life together, Edward and I, slowly, carefully, ever more trustingly. I lived for his kisses; he lived to hear my heart beat, to see the blush bloom in my cheeks. We found comfort and solace in each other, in our conversation, in our flesh upon flesh. There was no part of me that did not belong to him, and no part of him that did not belong to me. We were one.

Much as my body, before the illness, used to cycle, to follow like the oceans the pull of the moon, swell over the month and then let go of the blood that would have nourished life, Edward followed a certain arc as well. He would start out strong and gradually wane as we waited for my blood supply to be back up. I was his inverse, my energy low but gradually waxing as my body replenished itself of blood. To be safe, we counted sixty days, marking the passage of time in scratches in the flaking paint in my bedroom doorframe. As we grew closer to scratching the sixtieth hatch mark, Edward's fingers would tremble, and his skin would feel like cool, dry paper, like birch bark. "Not long, my love," I would whisper into his hair as he leaned against me. I'd hold his hand the way he'd once guided mine to show me where the stars used to be. I'd my hand over his and help him scratch into the wood to count down the days before he could feed again.

"Today," I'd say. "Twelve sets of five means sixty days, so it's time." He would protest, but it was just part of the ritual. He knew as well as I did that he needed my blood to survive. And unlike in my previous existence, the blood that would flow from me _would_ nourish life. He lived because of me, because of my body. And I lived because of him, his beautiful soul.

Once I'd helped Edward to my bed to rest before his long journey, I'd run to the old clinic, draw the blood, and tell myself as I stared up into the pale sky that I could survive the separation. He came back. He always came back. And, knowing that, I was able to resist the call of the cold steel on my desk, the final exit.

It was so hard when he left, though. Again, it was part of the ritual. After Edward had come back the second time, I'd found Jacob's plain messenger bag in my closet where it had lain untouched since Jacob's funeral, when Billy Black had led me to Jacob's room and invited me to take one item back with me to remember him by.

_I couldn't remember the last time I'd been here. How long had the Quileutes shut down their borders? When had the Blacks last invited us over for dinner?_

"_Anything, Bella," Billy Black said, a tremor barely discernible in his voice. "Whatever you want. Jacob loved you."_

"_I know," I said, but my throat was so dry that no sound came out. _

_Charlie didn't want me in his room—so afraid I might catch what he had, but I said I didn't care. I wasn't thinking straight, and everything felt so surreal anyway. I sat on the edge of Jacob's bed. Had he died here? The bed hadn't been stripped yet, and I could imagine it was still warm from his body. I brought his pillow up to my face and sniffed. It smelled just like him. If I closed my eyes, it was like I was hugging him, as I often did. I squeezed the pillow tightly to my chest as I cried. It was soft and cool, not at all like Jacob. _

_I wiped my face dry with my hands and glanced around the room. Jacob's bag was in the corner. I wondered if he'd just tossed it there when he'd gotten home from school, not realizing that it was the last time he'd go. Was he already feverish by then?_

_I knelt by the bag, emptying it of the heavy, hardcover textbooks. I left in his notebooks, his chewed-up pencils. "Can I have this?" I asked, holding up the bag. Billy nodded curtly._

_When Charlie and I got home, I emptied the bag on my bed. I flopped on my stomach and thumbed through his notebooks, crying when I saw Jacob's familiar handwriting, smiling a little at his doodles, rude caricatures of his less … attractive teachers. The whole thing was so _Jacob_ that suddenly I couldn't bear it. I shoved his notebooks under my bed and buried the bag in my closet under a pile of moth-eaten sweaters that were supposed to go to Goodwill._

I wondered how Jacob would feel, knowing I was using his old schoolbag to help a vampire transport my blood until he was far enough away not to come and hunt me down. Would he just think it was weird, or cool, or would he have some sort of moral objection? _Blood, Bella? Vampires? That's so disgusting, and possibly illegal_, I could hear him say in my mind. I imagined myself answering, _Since when do you need a license from the State of Washington to be a vampire?_ I could practically see him rolling his eyes at me, a grin hiding behind his mock-stern expression.

But these thoughts weren't helpful. They did not help me believe my other life was the dream. I'd shake my head as if I could physically toss these thoughts out of my brain. Sighing, I would tuck the donation bag of blood inside to keep it safe, to help me pretend we were a normal couple, that Edward was just going away on a perfectly boring errand, that he wasn't leaving because he was trying his hardest not to kill me.

As he waited at the doorway, I played the role of a fifties' housewife, buttoning up the jacket he didn't need for warmth, handing him the messenger bag with its precious cargo, bits of me that had flowed right through my heart. I stood on my tiptoes to peck him on the cheek, imagining myself as June Cleaver. "Do you have to go away?" I would say, knowing the answer, but still wishing it didn't have to be this way.

"You know I do. And I thank you for your gift." He would kiss me, and I would cling to his neck, squeezing him for all I was worth, knowing I couldn't hurt him.

"Don't leave," I'd whisper.

"It's the only way," he'd say, but he'd wait for me to pull away from him even though he could have tried to pry my fingers one by one from his neck.

"I'm closing my eyes now," I'd say, and we both knew that was the signal. I'd close my eyes and count to ten, as if we were just playing a game of hide-and-seek.

When I'd open my eyes, he would already be gone from my field of vision. "Olly olly oxen free," I'd say under my breath, wishing my words could make him magically emerge from some silly hiding place. But it would be just me—me and Charlie's gun. _He always comes back_, I'd remind myself. _He'll come back again_. And I'd try to push thoughts of the gun from my head.

On the other side of my bedroom's doorframe, I would scratch the other days, the days until my Edward would come back to me. Ten days away, fifty days together, and then time again for us to part. Edward had taken to hiding letters around the house for me to find, one per day, as if my house were one gigantic Advent calendar. Sometimes it was just a sketch he'd drawn of me while I was sleeping, lit only by the red light he said glowed within me. Sometimes it was a poem. But mostly he wrote letters while I slept, in those hours he spent alone.

_You are breathing slowly, steadily, and I can almost remember what it was like to be in my mother's womb, this comforting intake and outtake. When you sleep, your face is so peaceful. Even without your glow, I can sense the calm there. Sometimes in the night I touch your face, and I can feel you smile against my hand. It almost makes me wish for blindness, that I could know your beauty only from skin touching skin, your every emotion making an imprint against my fingertips. _

It took all my self-control not to go searching for all the letters, but I knew how much worse it would be if I didn't have something to look forward to the next day. I'd carry the new letter of the day with me, reading it to myself, then out loud, then to Charlie, then running to the woods, to our willow tree, where I'd whisper it reverently under the fronds. Sometimes the breeze would kick up, and the leaves rustling would seem to join me in a symphony of Edward's words, contrapuntally, in canon, in countermelody.

When I felt the desperation sinking in, I'd run into the center of town and shout the letter at the top of my lungs. I'd sing the words, wondering if he could hear me. I'd try not to think of those red eyes, that animal look when the Edward I loved was overtaken by this savage thing, his other nature.

And on the evening of the tenth day, he would be back on my doorstep as if nothing had happened, looking healthy and strong. We'd fall into each other's arms and slowly, carefully reacquaint ourselves with the other's body and scent.

"Where did you go?" I'd ask, even though it was always the same.

"To my last home." He always closed his eyes when he'd say it, as if it hurt too much to keep his eyes open.

"Did you remember anything?" He told me he would lie on a rock and look up at the sky, imagining the stars and trying to recall Carlisle's delirious words about the future.

He'd press his lips together a moment, sigh, and then shake his head. I never knew if he were telling the truth.

Who knows how long we'd been together, fallen into this predictable routine? I supposed if I'd counted up all the hatch marks, I could figure out, but in a way, I didn't want to know about the larger passing of time. I cared only about knowing how long I had before I could feed Edward again, and to count the days until he would return to me.

It was long enough that I really did begin to believe that other life had been a dream, that he had always been my life. When your world is destroyed and a new one is given, you don't try to make sense of it. There was no way to go back, and I had to pretend that _this_ was the new normal.

The forty days each cycle we spent together were like little bits of heaven, at least when I could shut my memory down. I'd avoid the school and the place where I'd shot that boy, but the fact was that I'd seen horror and violence in every part of my town. Everywhere but inside my house, and in the grove of noble trees. And now, our meadow.

We were lying in the meadow in the middle of the day. It was mid-cycle, maybe day twenty-five, when Edward was still strong enough to carry me here. Something had been nagging at the back of my head, but I didn't want Edward to worry. We lay together among the tall grasses, the field now exploding with delicate oleander, bright foxglove, shockingly blue delphinium. "How long can we live like this?" I mused. It was probably the last time we could come here this cycle. One cycle we'd visited too late, overestimating the energy Edward had remaining. It had taken us two or three days to make it back home. Edward had had to take too many breaks, and I was nowhere near fast enough to make the journey home without water or anything to eat. I'd brought enough food and water only for one day.

We'd rested, and after a few hours he would carry me, and then we would walk together for a bit, my stomach growling and contracting. Did he always feel like this, this hungry? Off and on during that journey, I'd believed I would die before seeing home again. By the time we made it home, we were both so exhausted that we agreed not to venture to the meadow later than thirty days into the cycle.

So here we were, one of the last safe days. Carefully he kissed me, made short work of our clothing, and rolled me on top of him, and there was no one but the sun and the swaying flowers as witness to our public, yet completely private, display of love. He always stayed still, afraid he'd accidentally hurt me, but he never closed his eyes as I rocked on top of him. His pupils would dilate until his eyes looked nearly black, and he would barely whisper how much he loved me as his body quivered below and inside mine. Even though I knew we were alone, I was as quiet as I could be, not wanting to disrupt the serenity of our meadow.

The flowers bloomed around us, bright and audacious, defiant. But always poisonous. Nothing edible. And the apple tree did not produce fruit again. We slept out there—maybe once a week before we had to stay closer to the house. He'd take my hand and trace the constellations again and again until I could almost remember what the night sky had looked like. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine pinpricks of light in the in the dark mantle of the heavens.

When we got back to the house the next day, I ate, as slowly as possible, the last can of pudding. I'd been saving it. I was still warm inside from remembering the meadow, Edward by my side, and I wanted to live, truly live, in this moment. I wanted it to be as special as possible.

"Pudding?" asked Edward. "Is it your birthday?"

"Who knows?" I said, carefully licking the back of the spoon. When the spoon just left lines of steel at the bottom of the can, I dipped my finger in, using it as a makeshift spatula to get out every last bit. I didn't care if Edward thought I was some uncultured pig. I suddenly wondered what Edward looked like when he'd hunted, before, in that other life. Was he tidy and as mannerly as he seemed in our interactions? Did he take down a zebra and then delicately drape a napkin on his lap, using the proper utensils to draw the blood? The thought of Edward wondering which fork was right for bison made me snicker.

"What's so funny?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," I said, but I couldn't stop smiling despite what I knew. I pushed that other thought away. It wasn't real yet.

"That's probably the last time we can go to the meadow," he said, taking the empty can of pudding from my hand.

"I know."

"But we'll go back."

I nodded.

We waited out the end of the cycle, taking short walks, sitting under our willow tree, reading books to each other. He told me so many stories about his family that I felt like I knew them. _This is my real life_, I said to myself as I listened. _This is my family_.

As we grew closer to sixty marks in the doorframe, Edward talked less and less, conserving his strength for the big run he'd soon have to make. This is when I'd tell him stories, read him the last newspaper for the thousandth time even as he rolled his eyes. "Rolling your eyes saps energy, you know," I said, but I smiled. It was nice when we could tease each other, be petty. It was so _normal_, or as normal as a freak girl and a vampire could be in a world in which they were its only inhabitants.

* * *

"Sixty," I said, helping Edward scratch the diagonal line across the last four lone straight lines. "Today. You ready?"

"Yes, but I wish you wouldn't."

"You know there's nothing you can do to stop me," I said, kissing him on the cheek.

He closed his eyes and leaned against me. "I know. You are the most stubborn girl I have ever met, and I've been around a long time." He chuckled lightly, and I smiled, even as my heart struggled to pump blood. I hated when he'd leave me, and the next ten days were going to be especially hard. I had a lot of thinking to do.

"I'll be back in a bit," I called as I prepared to draw my blood. I left the door open as I always did, and Edward watched me, leaning against the doorframe. He always watched when I walked away. Maybe it was because he knew I'd be back in a few minutes, not ten days.

As I stabbed my arm with the collection needle, I imagined it was Edward's teeth. I wondered if it would feel this way if he ever did lose control. I cried out, even though I almost enjoyed the burning sting into my vein. The pain was what it took to feed him, to make him whole. My body could do that. I'd bear the discomfort gladly.

I took my time walking back with a fresh bandage in the crook of my elbow, the bag of blood cradled in my other arm. Heel-toe, heel-toe, counting the steps back down to zero.

He was waiting there, and he waved weakly. Even though I wanted to run to him just as I always did when I saw him, I forced myself to keep my steady pace, slower than my heartbeat, heel-toe, heel-toe. He shut the door behind me as I went upstairs for Jacob's bag. I slipped the blood inside along with a book. I scrawled a note with one of Jacob's chewed-up pencils on the back of an old math worksheet. _I love you always_, it said. _I probably loved you even before I was born_. I wasn't capable of the poetry of Edward's musings that he'd no doubt hidden all through the house while I was at the old health clinic.

I tucked the note in one of the bag's pockets and walked softly downstairs, where Edward still stood near the door. I buttoned up his jacket, looped the bag over his head. I stood on my tiptoes, but instead of a peck on the cheek, I flung my arms around him, running into him so hard that his back slammed into the door. His cool arms snaked around my back, and I kissed him so hard. "Be careful out there," I said, holding my tears back.

"And you."

"Always."

"I'll always come back, Isabella. You know that, right?"

I nodded against his chest. I took a deep breath and pushed him gently away. He took his cue to open the door.

I closed my eyes, giving him my silent permission to leave. I counted to ten, and when I looked out the open door, he was already gone.

After straining my eyes, vainly scanning the horizon for his retreating form, I said, "Olly olly oxen free," and closed the door.

**

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A/N: Yo yo yiggety yo! Fandom Gives Back starts up soon, and I'm offering up drabbles, oneshots, one pair of handknit Bella mittens, and operafied songs. In addition, in_a_blue_bathrobe and I are offering up a collaboration!**


	23. Apathy

**The Hey-Only-Three-Chapters-Left Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Apathy**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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Chapter 23: Apathy**

The ten days passed as they always did—agonizingly slowly. But I had other things on my mind to occupy my time. _Should I tell him?_ I'd have to tell him. We had no secrets—did we? _What am I going to do?_ My mind spun and twirled on a Möbius band-like train of thought. _I could … but then … no, but what about …_ and I'd be back where I started.

I looked in the pantry, remembering what it once looked like, when Charlie was still alive, when he'd begun stockpiling supplies. The shelves had buckled in the middle from the weight of the cans and flats of water and soda. It was hard to believe it was even the same pantry. Again, it felt like another life, a dream. How long had it been just the two of us, just me and just Edward?

I glanced down at my hands, hands that had loved, hands that had killed, hands that were now rough and dry. My skin did not seem like it belonged to a teenager. How old was I now? I didn't even know. I wondered, idly, how many birthdays I'd had since Charlie died. Maybe I should have kept better track of the days, but at the time I was in too much shock, too overwhelmed to realize that it was up to me now to play the role of timekeeper. I had let that last year of my old life run out, crossing off the days one by one. When I got to December 31, my stomach dropped as if I were looking over the edge of a steep cliff. This was the end of measured time. _From here on out_, I thought, _the days aren't labeled. They don't exist._ Time now felt like a long-forgotten bowl of hard candies that had all fused together, its once discrete units now a strange, inedible mass.

All I had now were scratches in the doorframe upstairs, and they told me only when Edward would come back, and how long I had before he had to leave me again.

"Hey," I heard behind me, and I whirled around. Of course I knew today was the tenth day, but I'd been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed that Edward had slipped inside the house.

"You startled me," I said.

He smiled. "I know—I could hear it in your heartbeat. I'm sorry; I thought you heard me come in."

Any other day I might have teased him about his unfair ninja-sneaking skills and his obvious advantage over me with his vampire stealth. But my mouth felt dry, and I was too weighed down to joke around. Of course I was so glad he was here, but I couldn't stop my mind from racing around the Möbius band again. And again and again and again. I grew dizzy and leaned against the pantry door, which I'd hastily shut behind me when Edward had surprised me.

Edward studied my face as his smile slowly faded. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," I said, waving my hand casually.

"Bella," he said. He waited. I tried to make my face impassive. "_Bella_," he said again with a pleading look in his eyes. "You know I can't read your thoughts. What's wrong?"

"I don't want to worry you," I said, grabbing a fistful of my hair.

"Your worries are my worries." He came forward another few steps and pried back my fingers one by one, kissing each fingertip as he freed my hair. "Come on. You can tell me anything—you know that."

"It's fine," I said.

"I know you're lying," he said simply as he wrapped his arms around me. "I can't force you to tell me the truth. I wish you'd trust me with … whatever it is, but I respect your privacy. We don't have to talk about it."

"Thank you," I whispered against his chest. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Come upstairs?" he asked, gesturing up with his chin. "I missed the sound of your breath when you sleep. I tried to remember it in the dark, lying on Carlisle's flat rock, but I just couldn't get it right."

I nodded gratefully. I was exhausted—I never slept well those ten days away from him. We crept up the stairs in the fading light. The sun was just going down, but I didn't care. The sight of Edward here took all the energy out of my body, and I wanted nothing more than to be in his protective hold in my bed.

As we walked up the stairs, something in his jacket pocket thumped against my leg. "What's that?" I asked, stifling a yawn.

He was silent a moment, as if deciding if he should tell me. "I borrowed Billy Black's journal."

"Why?"

"Just wanted something to read while I went back to the old place." He shrugged, not looking me in the eye, and I knew I wasn't the only one not telling the whole truth.

I stopped walking.

"What?" he asked.

I thought of accusing him of lying, but hadn't I just done the same to him? What moral ground had I to stand on? "Nothing," I said, deciding to let it go for now. "Let's go to bed."

He nodded, and we continued up the stairs, Billy Black's journal thumping against my leg, the dull pain mirroring the one in my head whenever my mind made another pass around the Möbius band. As we walked through the doorway, I let Edward pass in front of me, as I stopped and reverently touched the scratches in the wood that marked our days together. My left hand grazed over the days we'd been apart; my right over our time together. Closing my eyes, running my hands up and down the wood on either side of me, I could _feel_ time, feel it in tiny hatch marks. If I moved my hands faster, it was like our life together in fast forward, a blur of sensation of our history together. One hand added up our days and nights as one; the other remembered our days and nights of separation. The funny thing was that the marks in the wood felt the same under either hand, despite their opposite meanings. I almost laughed out loud that my hands couldn't tell the difference, as if it signified something important, but suddenly I was just too tired to laugh, even in bitterness.

"You all right, Bella?"

"Yes," I whispered, my eyes still closed.

I let him come to me, take me by the hand. He brought me to the edge of the bed, where I sat down, exhausted. He pulled off one sock, then the other. I let him undress me like a doll, putting me in my nightclothes. I was bone tired. I didn't open my eyes. I could hear him begin to change, his jacket falling to the ground, Billy Black's journal weighing down the fabric. He nudged me into bed once he'd finished changing into clean clothes.

With hands outstretched, I searched for his body in the voluntary blindness behind my closed eyes, even as the last rays of sunlight glimmered orange through the thin skin of my eyelids.

"Sleep, Isabella," he said, brushing the hair out of my face to kiss me on the forehead. "I want to hear you breathe."

Breathing seemed unnatural then. _Is this how I inhale? How I exhale?_ I asked myself as my stomach and chest rose and fell, but in a strange rhythm. I supposed if you concentrated too much on anything automatic like that, you'd forget how to do it. I wondered what would happen if I thought too much about my heart beating, the valves in my heart opening and closing. Would my heart stop altogether?

My mind continued to spin out of control, and I felt as if I were falling through the galaxy, but then I felt Edward's cold body pressed against me. I clung to him like a lifeboat. _I'm still here_, I reminded myself. _As long as Edward's here, I won't disappear_. He began to hum something as he continued to smooth my hair and rub my back.

As much as my mind wanted to continue churning, Edward's voice and touch were like curare on the tip of a poison dart, paralyzing the synapses in my brain from firing. There was only a strange kind of blankness, a vague awareness that I was safe. I forgot to think about breathing, about pumping blood through my body, and I finally could sleep.

* * *

"Good morning," Edward said as I stretched in the bed against him.

"Is it boring for you?" I asked. "Lying here in the dark when you can't talk to me?"

"No," he said, smiling. "And who says I can't talk to you? I talk to you all night."

"Do you?" I mumbled through a yawn. "What do you say?"

"Well, now, that's between me and Sleeping Bella."

I sat up slowly, stretching my arms above my head. My shirt rode up a little. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Edward leaned forward and kissed the pale, exposed skin on my stomach.

I laughed, slapping at his head and trying to twist away from him. This all felt so _normal_, light and easy. My brain wasn't all the way awake yet, still occupying that in-between place where it couldn't remember the heaviness of waking life. And then there it was, like having the breath knocked out of you from falling hard on the ground. I stopped squirming, my face frozen mid-smile. I could feel my cheeks relax out of the smile and my eyes grow dull.

"Bella?"

It took me a while to remember that I was here, that he had said anything. "Yeah?"

He traced my eyebrows with a fingertip, then the rest of my face: cheekbones, nose, divot above my lip, the line of my jaw. "Will you ever tell me?" he asked.

I hadn't come up with a solution on my own. Maybe Edward would have a better idea. Maybe he'd find a way to save us. "Edward," I said, stopping his hand and lacing my warm fingers, still swollen from sleep, with his ever-cool ones.

Oh, god. How to tell him? Saying it out loud meant it was true. It would _make_ it true.

But of course it was true.

"I'm listening," he said, bringing our hands over my heart, beat, beating still. I told myself not to think about my heart, about my valves, lest it stop beating altogether.

"Edward," I said again, swallowing hard. "I … I'm running out of food. There's nothing left around the houses here—I don't know how long we've been here. I didn't think I'd have even this long." I didn't say what I'd been thinking—that I hadn't believed I would have been able to resist the quick escape of Charlie's gun for this long, that my will to live would run out far before my food supply. But Edward had come to me, and he had changed everything.

I wondered what it would feel like to starve to death. How long did Gandhi go without food? Couldn't you live at least two months on only water? I hoped it wouldn't hurt to die this way, slowly.

"Bella, it's going to be fine," Edward said. "I can run farther than you can. I'll find food for you."

"I've been thinking about that," I said. "But we're going to run out eventually. And then what? How do you see this ending? How can this possibly end well?" I realized then just how scared I was, how much I had come to embrace this new life.

"It wouldn't be for a long while," Edward reasoned.

"But if you go out running every day to find food for me, you'll be tired that much sooner, and I won't be able to give you blood. And you can't travel far carrying me, and … I don't know if I can be by myself all those hours. I just don't know."

"What do you want?"

I thought of everything I _wanted_, all I'd once wanted, back then: to grow up, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, to meet someone, fall in love, maybe have a family, to see Charlie as a grandpa, to travel and see the world. Then I thought of what I'd want _now_, given the new parameters: everyone I knew, the life I knew—gone completely.

It was sad how little I wanted now—and sadder still that what I wanted was impossible.

"I don't want to live like an animal," I said. "I can't go around worrying day to day if I'll have enough food. I'm so tired of all of it."

"Well," he said slowly, "there is something else—depending on … well, depending on if you …" He shook his head, looking at his feet.

"What?"

"I shouldn't assume you'd want forever," he said, still not meeting my gaze.

"Edward, I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Do you want to be with me?"

"Of course," I said automatically. "I wouldn't be here now if you hadn't come. I have no reason to live except for you." I thought of my life before Edward, how I'd talk to the sky, shout into the emptiness, hearing only my voice, my echo. I never would have lasted.

"I could … change you," he said finally, looking embarrassed, as if he wished he could pull the words that hung between us back into his mouth.

I thought of him undressing me last night, putting me in my pajamas. My brain was working slowly. "Change?"

"I mean, make you like me."

"Like you?"

"A vampire, Bella. You wouldn't need food. We could be together, no matter what. Until the end of time."

I shivered, letting _until the end of time_ sink in.

Taking in my silence, he said, "It was a stupid idea. Forget it."

My brain started to churn again, adding this new possibility to the mix.

"If I go running now, when I'm strongest, I can probably get at least several months' worth of food in the next few days," he said, backtracking.

"Shut up, Edward," I said, holding up a hand. "I need to think."

I didn't want him to go away, not so soon after he'd come back. I'd grown so used to our schedule of fifty days together, ten days apart, that changing it felt like insanity. I couldn't bear any more time away from him. Could I adjust to it? No, but I didn't want to be thinking constantly of food supply, and how far away he was, and when he'd come back. At least right now I _knew_ when he'd be back.

But could I become … like him? Would that be better? He wouldn't ever have to go away, because I'd be like him. He couldn't hurt me. But then what was I signing on for? _Until the end of time_ with no food, only it wouldn't kill us.

"Does it … hurt?" I asked.

"What?"

"The … changing." I also wanted to know what it was like to be hungry all the time. I thought of how weak he was when he'd first arrived here. How long would it take for both of us to be like that?

"Yes," he said. "I shouldn't even have asked—it's not fair. Yes, it hurts a lot. It's agony, and you would wish for death. But then you wouldn't hurt anymore."

"How long?"

"About three days. But it would feel much longer."

"Would I still be … me?"

Edward sucked in a breath. "Eventually."

"What does that mean?"

"It's hard to predict what you'd be like at first—maybe like a wild animal. You remember what I became the first time … with you." He touched the scars on my shoulders, and I nodded. "It might be like that, or worse. But it might be easier. I can't say."

I touched my fingers to my neck, finding my pulse. What kind of choice was this? Die sooner, or be unable to die until the end of time? Was I more afraid to live or to die? Would I rather live longer by seeing Edward less, as he struggled daily to scrounge for food to keep me alive? Or would I rather burn alive to stay with him forever, provided I would even be me after being transformed into a wild thing? Would I rather just make him stay by my side as my food ran out and I slowly starved to death?

My brain began its rounds on the Möbius strip again, until I clutched my head in my hands to stop the feeling of vertigo.

"Bella?" Edward's hands were pressed to my head, trying to alleviate pressure, feeling for fever or illness.

"I … don't know. I keep trying to make a decision, but, oh, they're all awful. How can I choose? What would _you_ choose?"

"I want to be with you as long as you want to be with me. The rest doesn't matter. I can live with the pain and the thirst and the weakening. If I see your face, if I can bury my nose in the crook of your neck … that's all I need. That's all I'd ever need."

He looked at me with eyes both hopeful and afraid, waiting for my answer.

And it was as if I'd been injected with curare again, but this time it was both my mind and whole body that were immobilized by the toxin, unable to decide which was the best way to live or to die.


	24. Bitter

**The Wow-the-Next-Round-of TT25-Is-Almost-Ending-and-This-One-Is-Still-Not-Complete Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Bitter**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

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Chapter 24: Bitter**

A vampire. Edward wanted to change me into a vampire. I supposed I should have been flattered that he wanted to stay with me forever, even if it meant he'd lose his one supply of food. He wouldn't care if I became a wild creature for a while, or if I never came back from that feral state. And he didn't care if we both slowly starved and weakened, as long as we were together. I imagined ourselves so tired that we would lie all day on my bed, just holding hands. If the spiders hadn't all died, they would spin webs around us, slowly weaving the shrouds we would wear as we turned into nothing more than living statues. We would wait until the end of time, the two of us, together.

What would it be like? Would we have enough warning before our bodies gave out totally, to find each other's hands on the bed? And then, would being so hungry all the time while unable to move be a kind of torture? How much of that could we feel? Would we slip into something like a coma, where we were barely aware of what was happening around us?

When Edward found me, he hadn't eaten in months. I remembered how weak he was. How much worse was it after years?

What were my other options? Would I rather just slowly starve to death? Would I maybe ask him just to kill me quickly, drain me of my blood? How long would my last gift sustain him? Would it be long enough? But I knew that he'd never allow that. He'd never kill me so that he would live. I knew I could push him into it, cut myself deeply enough that his animal instinct would take over. That part would be easy. But I couldn't bear the thought of him coming out of his bloodlust and realizing what he'd done. Could he build a fire and walk into it, immolating himself?

I realized two things simultaneously: he would burn himself alive, and I could never make him do that. He wouldn't forgive himself if he killed me. But I also wasn't sure I wanted to become living stone, alive but too weak to move. What kind of choice was this? Why me? Why was I chosen to stay alive? Why couldn't I have died with Charlie in his bed, or fallen ill like everyone else in my class? I wouldn't have to make this horrible decision—I'd just be gone, sleeping, or … nothing.

My thoughts flitted, as they so often did, to Charlie's gun. I had had so many opportunities to use it on myself, but there was that tiny part of me—I supposed just hard-wired into being a mortal creature—that resisted death no matter how much I thought I wanted it. In the end, I was a coward, and as harshly as I told myself to pull the trigger, that survival instinct would not let me. It overrode my commands.

But Edward could pull the trigger for me. If I asked him to, he wouldn't deny me anything. If it were what I truly wanted, and I could convince him of it, he could not force me to stay alive. And maybe afterward, since I had asked him, since he had killed me with clarity of mind, maybe he would be able to bear it.

Then I thought of him on the couch before I'd given of myself for him to feed, how tired, how weak. At least he'd had me to talk to. What if he were all alone? I'd be leaving him the way I would if I merely starved to death, except I'd be doing it deliberately. Charlie hadn't wanted to die. No one had. I alone had been given this gift, this stay of execution. Did I owe it to humanity not to toss the gift away?

"Bella?" Edward finally spoke as I tried to figure out what I wanted, how to reconcile my wants with what was possible and what was "right."

"Hey," I said, trying to stop my thoughts long enough to be present, truly present, to speak with him.

"You don't have to make the decision now," he said gently. "Perhaps it was pure selfishness that made me ask you. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, no," I said, resting my hand on his. "You just wanted me to know all the options. You were offering me something. You didn't have to, but you wanted to."

"But you don't want this."

I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not used to making decisions about how I'd prefer to die. I mean, I figured I'd always die of starvation anyway, unless I …"

"Unless you what?" he pressed, even though he probably knew.

"Unless I finally got the courage to kill myself. To just do it quickly, you know? Because there's no way—I mean, I would die someday anyway, and maybe it would be better to have it all over in an instant."

He looked troubled at this casual talk of offing myself. "You don't have to decide today, you know."

It was true. I just had to figure out how I was going to get my next meal. "I don't want you to leave me anymore," I said. "If going with you means we both have less time, I'll take it, because we're near the end anyway, right? I'd rather spend that time with you, every second." I laughed humorlessly. "I mean, that's about as wishy-washy an answer as I can give, isn't it? To decide to do nothing? Just keep on going as we were?"

"Whatever you want."

"I think it's a difference of only days, anyway. How much food can be left out there? It's a finite amount, and even if you could run far and fast and find enough for twenty years, that's no sort of life. I'm tired of the time away from you. I'd rather … just be with you."

"If that's how you feel, then why won't you let me change you? It would be like that, but forever."

I hung my head down, letting my tangled hair fall like a curtain. "I'm not sure I want forever," I whispered, "even with you. I'm just … I'm just so tired. I want it to be over. I want the game to end. All games have to end someday. I guess I never wanted immortality. I just wanted a normal life."

Edward was quiet for a long time, and when I peeked out at him from underneath my hair, his eyes seemed so sad, sad that I wouldn't choose forever, even with him. When he saw me looking at him, he sighed and said, "I understand."

"You're strong today," I said, swinging my legs around on the bed to get up. "Let's go to the meadow. We can look for food on the way. Let's just have a nice day together, okay?"

He nodded, and we both got dressed. Should I squander one of my last days this way, tapping him of his limited energy? But what was the alternative? Lying about the house all day, hungry and depressed? At least the meadow was beautiful.

We left the front door open as usual, and I watched the door swing back and forth slowly. From my perch on Edward's back, I waved goodbye with the hand not clutching his neck. "Bye, Charlie," I said.

He ran, sniffing the air. "I'm sorry that I can't really smell which houses still might have cans of food. The metal, it masks a lot. Maybe I'll take a different route today."

We passed through what might once have been a midsized town. There were shells of cars, upside down, charred—things must have gotten bad here during the last, desperate days of these people. There were mostly decomposed bodies in the street. Edward turned his head and said, "I'm sorry—I shouldn't have brought you here."

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," I said, which was true. I thought how colossally fucked up that statement was, that a street littered with the dead had become as normal a sight as birds hopping on and off the backyard feeder in my previous life. Christ, I still felt like a child inside. I wanted to cry for that child in me, that she'd had to grow up so quickly. Even if I had lived in that other, healthy world, lived a long life even with the normal rate of street crime, violence, wars, natural disasters, and tragedy, I never would have had to grow up _this_ much.

It was all so unfair. My eyes were hot with tears, and I pressed my face into Edward's back, trying to cry as softly as I could. I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming in frustration, and I just held onto him tightly, breathing in his scent deeply. His sweet smell numbed my brain, and I let myself get lost in the Edward-induced mind fog.

"Bella, Bella, look," Edward said, slowly easing me to my feet. He'd found a grocery store. The windows were smashed in, which was good because the automatic doors hadn't been working in … god, years? He helped me inside, and we scrambled through the store, but all the shelves were empty. It figured. During the last days, people became more and more like wild animals, looting, killing. They'd picked this store clean like vultures would a carcass in the desert. There was nothing left, not even a packet of saltines.

"It's okay," I said as Edward slammed his hand into one of the metal shelves. He bent the whole thing in half, leaving a fist-print in the dusty metal. "We'll find food in one of these houses."

We walked then, hand in hand, in and out of the empty houses, searching for anything edible. We found a can of something in one house, a stale box of crackers in another. Edward loaded up my old backpack, and soon I was again on his back, and he was running to our meadow.

I shut my eyes again and breathed him in, felt his muscles rippling under me, this efficient machine. I let the haze come over me, reveling in the blessed oblivion. Too soon we had arrived at the meadow, and my brain began to churn in thought again, trying to untangle this knot of how I would choose to die, if I even had a choice.

No. I _would_. I _would_ have a choice. _I_ would decide how this story ended.

The meadow was full of colors and sweet scents, the grasses growing high. Edward quickly picked the most vibrant flowers and wove a crown for my hair. "You look like Titania," he said, looking at me as if I'd stepped right down from the heavens. Me, I wasn't so sure Titania ever wore plaid flannel, but I didn't contradict him. If I wouldn't be able to feed him again, I would bring as much comfort to him as I could, and he seemed to drink in my image.

"I wish I could see my reflection," I said, winding a lock of hair around my finger.

"I'll show you," he said. He made me lie down on the blanket, and he took time to fan my hair out, arrange it just so. "Close your eyes," he said.

I could hear him rushing about, leaving me for brief moments, but always coming back. I could feel when he was studying me; even with my eyes closed, his gaze burned my skin. Whatever he was doing, he was working furiously. I yawned widely a few times, and he laughed. "Sleepy, little one?"

"You relax me," I said, stretching my arms wide, bathing in the light I imagined reflecting from his eyes.

"You can open your eyes now," he said after a time, and he pulled me up to sitting.

"Oh, Edward," I breathed, looking at the portrait he'd drawn of me using just petals and leaves and branches. "Is this what I look like to you?"

"This is only a poor facsimile," he said. "The real thing is far more beautiful than can be portrayed by objects."

"Kiss me," I said, and I didn't think about food or dying or breathing until long after the sun had set.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked once darkness had fallen, wrapping me in his arms and tucking the edges of his jacket under me.

"Yes, just fine."

He held me to him and pressed his lips against my hairline. "I love you," he whispered, even though we were the only souls on earth.

"You too," I said, drifting off. I slept without dreaming.

* * *

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. I never slept long after the sun came up. When I opened my eyes, it was dim out, as if it were sunset. "How long was I out, Edward?"

He didn't answer me, too busy looking at the sky. I followed his gaze and saw the sun as I'd never seen it before: twice as large as usual, and a strange, angry red. A sun made of blood.

"What's happening, Edward?"

"The beginning of the end," he said so quietly that I barely heard him.

"I don't understand."

He pulled Billy Black's journal out from the jacket pocket, flipping rapidly through the pages. "_After the plague destroys the living, the sun will embrace the earth in mourning, crying in blood_," he read.

"Th-that's just a book. It's not real. How do you know that's what it means? Or if they're even right?" I wrapped my arms around myself even though I wasn't cold.

"I didn't know until I saw the sun come up," he said. "The journal is so vague and figurative, but this sun—it's not normal, Bella. I've lived a long time, and I've never seen anything like this."

"So what happens next?"

He flipped ahead a few more pages. "Billy talks about a great turtle throwing off its shell. I remembered some of what Carlisle would say, toward the end when he was delirious. He kept talking about broken yolks, eggs cracking, how fragile the shell was. I thought he was remembering bits of his human life, you know, how you humans see your lives flash before your eyes, before the end."

"But you don't think that now," I said, drawing my knees to my chest, maybe to keep myself from shattering into fragments.

"I think there will be an earthquake. And I think that will be the end."

"Oh."

"Just 'oh'?"

The world was going to end, finally. Was it relief I was feeling? Wasn't this what I had wanted, to get off this ride? "I don't know," I said finally. "I need to think." I scrunched up my face, trying to understand.

"Is this what you were worried about when you came home?" I asked suddenly.

He just nodded.

"You should have told me."

"Bella, I didn't know if I was right, or how soon any of it would happen. There's no timeline in the journals, and Carlisle's thoughts were just mad ramblings."

I thought of the earth cracking open like an egg. At least it would be quick, right? But who knew when it would happen? How would we live day to day, not knowing if it would be our last?

I surprised myself by becoming furious, ripping up the grass closest to me, punching at the ground. Edward tried to still me, but I screamed for him to let me go. "It's just so unfair!"

"What is?" he asked gently.

"Everything! How none of this was ever my choice! These things, everything just _happened_ to me. I lost everyone I loved. I saw people die in front of me, people kill each other in the most brutal ways. I lived like a wild thing all alone, and then you showed up and made me hope. And now it's all going to end, with no warning. _None_ of it is fair!" My hands were stained with chlorophyll from the grass I'd destroyed.

"We don't know when, Isabella. It might be years from now."

"Yes, and I might starve to death by then."

"I could change you."

I didn't want to tell him how afraid I was that I wouldn't be myself after. And then what? Just to die when the world crumbled away beneath us? And enduring horrible pain and thirst and constant agony, just wishing for death but being unable to die?

"I can't," I said, shaking my head.

_I can't do anything_. Nothing was ever my choice. Maybe it _was_ time to decide. What if … well, what if we would have ample warning before the earthquake?

"Edward? Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Can you promise me something?"

"Of course," he answered automatically.

"Do you swear?"

He placed his hand on my chest. "On your beating heart, I swear."

"I want you to kill me if this earthquake comes. I don't want my death to be just something that _happens_ to me. I want to be in control of it."

"Bella, I … can't." He squeezed his eyes shut. "You know I can't do that."

"But you promised. Please, please, none of this has been my choice. Let me die the way I want to. I'd rather you kill me than just be gone, like, _poof_, smashed under the hand of God. It'll be like I never existed. There will have been no point to _any_ of this."

"I don't want to be a monster," he said, kneading his closed eyes with his fists.

I stilled his hands. "It wouldn't be like that. Charlie's gun. You could just shoot me, right when we feel the earthquake. We'd both be dead soon anyway, right?"

"So why does it matter so much?" He still wouldn't open his eyes.

"Edward, I want to be with you for every moment we have left. I don't know how long that is. Maybe the journal is wrong. We'll find more food. We'll make it work. But you have to promise me that if the end is coming, you will kill me first. I will not let my death just … _happen_ to me. Don't you wish you could have chosen, being turned?"

"I do."

"You would have chosen to die, wouldn't you?"

"I would," he admitted. "But our choices aren't always good. If I'd chosen to die, I wouldn't have met you."

"Edward! We are both going to die anyway."

"I can't hurt you."

"But you're hurting me more by not killing me. You're making my entire life this … _passive thing_ I just sat through, like a passenger in a car. I want at least one thing, one important thing in my life, to have happened because _I_ willed it so."

"All right," he said. "But maybe the journal and Carlisle are wrong."

"Maybe," I said. "In which case I will stay by your side. We'll move from town to town, finding food, sleeping wherever. I'll feed you when I can, back to the old schedule. I'll live for you if you promise me this one thing."

"I don't like the thought of it."

"Well, shit, Edward, I don't like _any_ of it. But can you promise?" I looked at him, and he finally opened his eyes.

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, I promise to … to kill you if we feel the earthquake coming. If I'm even right about that. Now you have to promise, too."

I didn't need him to tell me what he wanted from me. "I promise to stay by your side and not try to harm myself. I will live for you."

"Good."

Just then the wind whipped up, scattering my wilted botanical portrait far and wide across the meadow. Edward plucked a petal caught in my hair as we watched my face disappear, no longer with discernible features. We held each other quietly in the strange, red light, the pieces that represented me simply becoming absorbed back into the landscape, from where it had come, as if I had never existed.

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ZOMG, you guys! One chapter left!**


	25. Awe

**The HOLY SHIT IT'S THE LAST CHAPTER Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere**

**Prompt: Awe**

**Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden**

**Pairing: E/B**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**

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Chapter 25: Awe**

As with all things in my short and twisted life, I soon grew used to the large, blood-red sun. The strange light it cast on me, the unnatural ruddiness of my skin—it became my new normal. It was hard to remember I time when I hadn't been bathed in red light as if I were nothing but a foil-wrapped burger under an infrared lamp at some cafeteria. The thought of the sun as a giant lamp keeping us warm before we were picked and consumed seemed apt, and I'd wonder from time to time what food Edward and I would be. Maybe I'd be some kind of chicken sandwich with a sesame seed bun. Edward? What would Edward be? He was so cold I couldn't imagine his needing to be kept warm. Maybe he was an iced coffee that someone had accidentally left under the lamps. Oh god, ice. I remembered ice. I loved ice. It would drive Charlie crazy when I'd crunch ice at the dinner table. "Grinding bones to make your bread?" he'd ask, shuddering for effect.

The real question was, who was waiting to consume us? The earth? I could imagine the earth cracking open, turning into a gaping maw, swallowing us whole. Maybe it would be like a trash compactor, creaky and crushing. After Edward shot me, my body would probably squish without a sound, save for the snap and cracking of my bigger bones. Edward, though … he was made of bone, or rather, made of something far stronger than bone. Would the pressure of the earth folding in on us affect his body at all Was he built to survive even this? Or would the earth show mercy, pulverizing him? What happened to vampires' bodies? Would he turn into dust and debris? _Grinding bones to make your bread_, I thought, imagining the earth like a giant savage beast against whom we were powerless.

The bottom line was that I didn't know anything. These were all just theories. And maybe Edward was right. Maybe he'd misread the journal, misinterpreted Carlisle's words. Maybe this was something the sun had to do to reset itself, like a total earth reboot. The sun would supernova, and then it would rise, newborn, like a phoenix. Everything would be back to normal, as if this whole thing were just some kind of video game where you had unlimited lives. You died, but you returned again, right in the place where you were killed, blinking on and off a few times before your body turned solid and you could begin again.

What if we all ended up where we'd died? Dad would be in his bed, Jacob in his messy room in Billy Black's house. What if the ground broke open and I fell to the center of the earth? Was that where I'd find myself again, in Earth 2.0?

And Edward? Would he be where he'd died with me, or would he be back in a hospital bed in Chicago? Would he be the age he would have been if he'd never been changed? Would he be an old man now, come back to life only to die again, as a frail human?

* * *

The day the sun turned red, the day that Edward promised me he would give me the death I wanted, was the last time we returned to Charlie's house. We had to leave—I had sworn I would keep on living, at least until it was time to die, and I couldn't keep my part of the promise if we continued to stay where there was no food. Charlie had given me a luggage set for my birthday, my last birthday with him (how long ago was that?), thinking I could use it when I visited colleges, and, eventually, when I went away for school. The tags were still attached. I couldn't remember if I'd ever even taken all the pieces out of the set.

Edward watched me pack. He wasn't sure what I needed, so he sat on the edge of the bed and observed me flit from one corner of the room to my dresser, to my closet, out to the hallway, downstairs, and back upstairs. If I went downstairs, he'd stand at the banister and listen to me rifling through papers. He tried to guess which books I was taking off the shelves, based on the slapping of cardboard on the padded flesh on my palms.

"Sounds like a folio," he'd say.

"D'Aulaires' _Book of Greek Myths_," I'd say.

"Greek myths? And isn't that book for children?"

"If the world is ending, it kind of makes more sense to me if we've got vengeful, thunderbolt-throwing gods." I flipped through the book, the musty scent of its old pages making me feel like a child again. The book fell open to a full-page illustration of Zeus. I started babbling, "I remember being scandalized when I realized you could see Zeus's nipple on this page. Man nipples. Or, I guess, god nipples."

"God nipples?" Edward repeated. I could imagine the smirk on his face just from the tone of his voice.

"I didn't know what _tunic_ meant. I thought it was a dirty word, so I'd whisper it into my pillow in the dark, with my door shut, thinking I was being terribly naughty."

"You are the strangest creature," he laughed, and in that moment, I could almost forget why I was packing, why I was choosing books: I was leaving forever.

I packed all the needles and blood bags that I'd taken from the clinic. No doubt we might find other facilities as we searched for food, but I'd rather be prepared. I took a set of utensils, a large dishpan to hold rainwater, some empty jugs to pour the collected water in, and managed to fit everything in the largest suitcase and the rolling duffel.

Charlie's gun went into my backpack, because I wanted it close to me. It was insurance. And although I knew Edward was a man of his word, part of me still didn't trust that he wouldn't "accidentally" leave the gun behind or pretend not to notice if it fell out of one of the bags.

I couldn't tell how late it was when we were ready to go. The sun no longer set. There was no more darkness. Had we frozen in time? Had the earth just stopped revolving, like a child's top as it slowed and wobbled and eventually rolled to stillness on its side? I was tired, though, and my eyelids felt heavy.

"Let's go," I said once Edward had brought both bags downstairs as if they were tiny brown paper lunches, relics from another time.

I had a sudden, vivid flashback of school mornings at the house, how in the darkness of the early morning I'd pack my own lunch—when I first moved in, Charlie had wanted to pack my lunch, thinking that was part of his parental duty. The first day he'd made a sad sandwich on moldy bread and turkey that smelled a little off, slathered in about half a jar of mayonnaise. As I eyed the sandwich in distrust, my fingers pinching the top slice of green-flecked bread, the kids at school had started a pile of loose change in the middle of the table so I could buy some gluey mac and cheese from the cafeteria. After that, most days I'd make myself a peanut butter sandwich (crunchy) on whole wheat, an apple, maybe some granola. Lost in the memory, I could smell the bread toasting, the feel of the cool countertop against my stomach as I unscrewed the lid of the peanut butter jar while Charlie sat at the table behind me, rustling the paper and gurgling a happy, tuneless song. I wished I'd known then how precious these tiny moments were at the time. I'd give anything to have that be my everyday life again, anything to open my eyes and find Charlie behind me, using his forehead to bend the newspaper back in half so he could turn the page.

"Wait," Edward said. My eyes flew open, and I was shoved roughly back into reality, the contrast nearly knocking the wind out of me. He set the bags down lightly, his eyes fixed on the bookshelves. "Don't you want to take your photos?"

I'd thought about it. I'd taken the dusty albums off the shelf, felt their heft in my hands, and then put them back in place. I didn't know if it was because I felt those photos belonged _here_, in _our house_, or because maybe I didn't want to have such powerful triggers or even concrete proof of another, happier time. I didn't think I could bear to look at photos of me in pigtails, blowing out candles on a birthday cake, Charlie looking at me sternly because I'd taken his picture without permission. That was a life as long gone and fictional as the Greek myths. Rather, the Greek myths were far more real to me now, in this world that held no logic or mercy. _As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods / They kill us for their sport._

"That's not my life anymore," I said, surprised at the lack of emotion in my voice.

"Aren't you afraid you'll forget?"

"I'm more afraid that I'll remember."

Edward nodded and silently hoisted the bags back up, and we stood outside the house in the pale pink light.

"Wait," I said, just as he'd turned to leave.

I sprinted through the open door, tore through the house, and pushed my way out the back entrance, stumbling over the stairs down to the backyard. I fell to the ground face first, arms spread wide on Charlie's grave. "Goodbye, Charlie," I said, imagining the soft grass on my cheek was his evening stubble. "Maybe I'll see you soon."

And that was it. The wave of sorrow, panic, _whatever_, had already passed. Calmly I walked back through the house, feeling like I wasn't quite in my body. Edward stood, concerned, right where I'd left him on the front lawn. I walked to his side and looked back at the house. I waved, as I always did, at the swinging door, but it didn't feel right. It was time to stop pretending life was normal. There was no one to say goodbye to, and I wasn't coming back.

I walked up the steps and pulled the door shut behind me.

This part of my life was over. Maybe it had never existed.

* * *

And so we became nomads in the never-ending rose light, traveling from one town to the other. Soon after leaving Forks, Edward found a bicycle that surprisingly hadn't been destroyed by the desperate last people. The chain was loose, and the tires had deflated, but Edward fixed it with things he'd picked out of other people's garages. It made it easier for me to keep up with him and cover more ground. Edward could save his strength, and we found enough food for me to keep moving.

It was hard to keep track of time, even more so than before, because the night and the day had become identical. The sun seemed to draw closer and closer to us, filling more of the sky every time I awoke. I slept when I was tired, never sure if I had become nocturnal or if my body's clock was able to stay the same despite my changing environs. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a vampire, where your life stretched out into just one long day that lasted forever.

Even though I didn't know how long we'd been wandering, I could tell it had been a while when Edward started weakening again. He closed his eyes more and shuffled his feet like he was an old man, but he kept walking, his legs working when he hadn't the energy to speak. I suspected it was his stubbornness and willpower that kept his body moving.

I'd have to give him blood.

"Let's stop," I said when we reached a clearing. I spread out our blankets and pulled Edward down. "Just rest," I said, and he wordlessly stretched out and ceased moving, a statue barely alive but unable to die. I kissed him on the forehead before leaving on the bicycle with my backpack of supplies, pedaling maybe ten miles or so before braking and hopping to the ground.

I was so used to piercing my skin right at the crook of my elbow that I didn't even flinch or feel the slightest urge to look away. I watched the blood travel through to the donation bag, the transparent tubing quickly becoming opaque, impermeable to the pale red light. It reminded me of those old-school glass thermometers that you'd have to tilt to see the temperature. As the bag filled, I tried to remember the feeling of the glass bulb under my tongue. The last time they'd used a glass thermometer on me was sometime when I was a little kid living with Renee. "Don't bite the glass!" she'd fretted as she pressed her cool hands to my flushed cheeks.

When I'd clamped the tubing and removed the needle, I ate a stale breakfast bar we'd found a few days ago. The box had been infested with boll weevils, but they were long dead, and at this point I wasn't choosy. _Just extra protein_, I thought as I bit and chewed, trying not to notice any differences in texture. I just wanted to get back to Edward, to make him strong again, and I couldn't pedal ten miles unless I got some food in my stomach.

He hadn't moved at all from his position on the blanket. I knelt beside him, smoothing his hair away from his eyes. "Hey, you need to eat," I said, stretching out by his side. I pressed the warm bag into his hands.

"Don't want to leave you," he whispered.

"So don't." Maybe he was accustomed enough to my blood, my scent, that he wouldn't lose control. And if he lost control, well, wouldn't that be a mercy for me?

"I'm fine," he said. His voice sounded so hoarse that I imagined his parched throat, every word rubbing like sandpaper inside his trachea.

I removed the clamp from the donation tube. I threaded the end of it into his mouth, which was open slightly—probably took less energy to do that than try to keep his mouth shut.

Weakly he tried to smack my hand away, but I just hushed him. Once the tubing had passed between his teeth and was nestled between his cheek and molars, I pressed on the bag. He sputtered a little at first, but then drank greedily, gaining strength as the bag emptied. It was amazing watching his transformation, his reawakening. I'd seen this only once before, since he'd been so careful after that first time to be far from me when he fed.

When the bag was empty, he looked at me with his blood-red eyes, mimicking the abnormal sun above. He growled as he smelled the air around me. "So foolish," he mocked, grinning cruelly.

"Edward, you're still in there. You're there. You're stronger than this." I tried to touch him, but he jumped back, horrified, as he remembered who he was, who I was.

"B-bella, why?" He seemed so small and helpless then, and he shook violently as he tried to control himself.

"You were weak."

"You should have let me stay weak." Every word was such an effort with his jaw clamped shut.

"I need you, Edward. You're the only thing that makes me want to live."

"You're not safe."

"I trust you."

He laughed. "_I_ don't trust me, you tasty morsel." He grinned wider, showing his teeth.

I put my hand on his cheek. "Remember who you are. You are not the monster."

Something in his demeanor changed, and although his eyes stayed as red as the blood he'd just consumed, they seemed shameful and afraid.

"I have to go," he said, wrenching away from my touch.

"Don't leave," I begged.

"I'll hurt you." I couldn't tell if it was a warning or a promise.

"Please," I said, reaching for his cool hand. He crouched down low, looked at me with something like hatred, and ran from me.

I called after him until my voice was ripped to shreds, but he didn't turn back.

* * *

I didn't want to sleep, in case he returned. I was hungry but didn't want to move—what if he came back and couldn't find me? Of course I knew he could probably follow my scent, but everything felt unsure to me now.

It was the first I'd been alone in a while, and I didn't know if he'd be back. We no longer had the doorframe to mark our days. We didn't have sunsets to tell us when one day shifted to the next. We—I—had nothing now.

I sat on the blanket cross-legged and unzipped my backpack slowly, reaching inside for Charlie's gun. The cold steel reminded me of Edward's hand, and I pressed it to my cheek and tried to pretend he was touching me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make myself believe, so I opened my eyes and laid the gun down on the blanket.

I stared at the gun and wondered where Edward was. I sat up, refusing to sleep, refusing to eat the last of the stale breakfast bars. Eventually I slumped over from exhaustion, sleeping with my spine curved, my head on the bit of blanket between my crossed legs.

I woke up in confusion, my legs asleep, my back aching. _Where are you, Edward?_ I asked again and again, wishing he could read my thoughts.

I kept vigil for—well, time no longer was definable. I didn't move from the spot where we'd last been together. I stayed awake as long as I could, but eventually I'd collapse, sleep fitfully, and wake up, hoping he'd come back. I still didn't eat, but I allowed myself sips of water, just enough to keep me lucid.

He would come back. He'd have to come back.

I wished I had days, my doorframe, some way to _know_ he was returning. No matter how horrible my life had become, somehow there was always something else that could be taken away: sunsets, scratches in wood marking the time, Edward. Just when I thought I'd already lost everything, I found there was always more to lose.

* * *

I was being shaken awake. "Edward?" I whispered hopefully, but when I sat up, I saw nothing. The ground was moving. Was this the earthquake?

Was this the end?

"Edward!" I cried out. "I need you!"

I gazed toward the horizon but saw nothing. It was happening, and Edward wasn't going to keep his promise. I was going to die here alone. How long did I have? Maybe the earthquake would last days, a slow crumbling away. Or maybe it would be quick, an egg cracked in half.

He wasn't coming back. It was up to me.

I picked up Charlie's gun, putting it at my temple, then at my stomach, then in my mouth, and under my chin. Which way would be the most effective, the quickest, the most merciful?

I didn't realize I was crying until I felt warm drops fall on my legs. "Edward, you promised!" I shouted at the sky. The sun looked ready to swallow the earth, an angry red dragon.

I closed my eyes, the gun under my chin. I would count to ten, and then I would pull the trigger. The ground was bucking beneath me like a wild animal, and I heard cracking, rumbling, trees falling in the distance.

_Ten … nine … eight …_

The air smelled of sulfur.

_Seven … six … five …_

I breathed in the suddenly hot, acrid air.

_Four … three … two …_

I began to squeeze the trigger.

"Bella!"

I opened my eyes, and there was Edward, standing in front of me.

"Are you a dream?" I asked, lowering the gun and standing up on unstable legs.

"I keep my promises," he said. "I ran back as soon as I felt the ground shake."

"So it's time, then?" I asked, suddenly afraid. Suddenly not sure if I could go through this.

He just nodded sadly, prying the gun from my fingers.

"How soon?"

"I don't know."

"Where will it hurt the least?" I asked, my voice quavering.

"I think if I get your brain," Edward said, swallowing hard. He put the muzzle of the gun where I'd had it trained a few moments before. He closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to look at me while he filled his end of the promise.

"Wait," I cried.

He lowered the gun immediately.

I collapsed against him, no longer able to keep my balance on the quaking earth. He held me up in his strong arms. I took the gun from his hand and tossed it away. It turned out that this wasn't the way I wanted to die.

"Kiss me," I said.

He crushed me to him, his mouth on mine, and the earth crumbled around us. There were explosions, fire, but the little patch of ground on which we stood stayed intact, waiting for something. Waiting for us to be ready.

He kissed down my neck, and I shivered, remembering all our firsts.

_Our wrists bound together, his soft kiss_.

He slid his hands up the back of my shirt.

"_I want you," he said, and I pulled my shirt over my head._

"Never stop kissing me," I said, seeing the earth behind him crumble and collapse. "Never stop."

"_I don't want to hurt you."_

"_You won't. Just lie there."_

_And he did his best statue impression as I lowered myself onto him, wincing a little at the cold and the pain, but feeling so close to him, so close, so together, so not alone_.

We sank to the ground, never breaking contact, always kissing. I could feel the heat coming from the large crack in the earth closest me.

"_Is this all right?"_

"_More than all right," I said, shy and bold all at once. Was this really me? He kept his eyes closed as I rocked slowly on him, afraid to move for fear he'd rip me in two._

Edward fumbled with our clothing, and then we were both naked and unashamed, a new Adam and Eve. In the corner of my eye, I could see a crack opening the earth, heading straight to our last intact piece of land. We didn't have much time.

_He stayed cool while I sweat from the exertion. He licked my neck. "You taste like salt," he said. _

"_Does it taste like my blood?"_

"_Only a little."_

_His face, oh how beautiful his face became, brighter than the brightest sun that I could remember, and his eyes opened in surprise as my body clenched around him._

"_I love you, Bella."_

"_And I love you, Edward."_

The crack kept growing closer, but we moved together on our blanket. I looked in his eyes as he gazed at me, trying to memorize my face. I had already memorized his.

"I love you, now and forever," I said, feeling not bitter or angry, but grateful, full of awe, that I had been able to find him, find such love in this shell of a world.

"Now and forever," he repeated as the ground opened beneath us, and we fell, his arms still holding me close to him. He would never let me go, no matter how far we fell, how deep, into the hot air from the collapsing earth's core.

My skin began to prickle and burn, and I cried out in pain. But his cool arms soothed me, and he kissed me harder than I ever remembered being kissed, until I forgot the pain, forgot the falling, forgot that this was the end of the world.

**

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**A/N: OMG, you guys, I finished! WOOOOOOOOOOT! I'd like to thank everyone who READ this (not wrote, OMG, brain fart, thanks to Spargelkun for enjoying my egregious, possibly Freudian, slip), anyone who pimped this, Mrs. TheKing for making this the first #readalong, feathers_mmm for giving this story the "Wallbanger effect," my girls at the Rav, the lovely peeps at ADF for making me a VIP author [visit them at adifferentforest(dot)com], and especially my posse of crunty love: philadelphic, Algie, adorablecullens, and MsKathy. All my love to NelsonSmandela, my fic wife. I love you, baby.**

**This story was largely inspired by Don McKellar's 1998 film, _Last Night_. I highly encourage you to check it out. It's one of my favorites.**

**Thank you for reading my tale of doom.**

**Feisty**

**August 9, 2010**


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